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W'^fmm LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, | 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. | 



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FIFTEENTH EDITION. 

YESTERDAYS WITH AUTHORS. 

By JAMES THOMAS FIELDS. 

1 vol. I2m0. $ 2.00. 

CONTEXTS : INTRODUCTORY. — THACKERAY. — HAWTHORNE. — DICK- 
ENS. —WORDSWORTH. —MISS MiTFORD. — Barry Cornwall. 



" Mr. Fields has certainly met with signal success in the composition of an 
entertaining volume. It offers a rare charm to the lovers of literary anecdote, 
a class virhich probably includes the whole of its readers, — and in many consid- 
erable portions possesses an interest no less enticing than the naive recitals of 
Boswellor the pleasant recollections of Crabb Robinson." — AVa/ York Tribune. 

" The world owes Mr. Fields many thanks for his ' Yesterdays with Authors,' 

— a volume full of reminiscences, anecdotes, and letters of some of the writers 
whom Mr. Fields has known. Thackeray, Hawthorne, Dickens, and Miss Mit- 
ford are the chief personages described, and what is said of them all is fresh 
and interesting- The paper on Wordsworth gives some of his traits as distinctly 
as any description we have ever seen, and the whole book is good." — Sfring- 
Jield Republican. 

- "This work is far better than Crabb Robinson's delightful book, the fault of 
which was that, being chiefly a Diary, it only gave glimpses of eminent people ; 
whereas Mr. Fields gives portraits, not elaborated, but spirited, graceful, and 
undeniably accurate. Much of what he tells us is the result of personal knowl- 
edge and observation, and for the rest he has allowed the subjects of his remi- 
niscences to speak for themselves in their many letters. This is particularly the 
case with Dickens, from whom there is a double set of epistles, one to Mr. 
Fields and the other to the late Professor Felton, —and in that of Miss Mitford, 
whose correspondence is equal in spirit and easy grace to that of Lady Mary 
Montagu or Madame de S€\igni." — Phiiacielphia Press. 

" The volume is full of interest to the lovers of those great authors. — Nev) 
York IVorld. 

JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Publishers, Boston. 



UNDERBRUSH 

By JAMES T. FIELDS. 



". . . . plucked out of hedges, 
pitched in the ground confusedly." 

Shakespeare. 




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BOSTON 
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 

Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co. 
1S77. 






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Copyright, 1877- 
By JAMES T. FIELDS. 



Universitv Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co, 
Cambridge. 



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CONTENTS, 



My Friend's Library 

A Peculiar Case .... 

Familiar Letter to House-Breakers 

Our Village Dogmatist 

A Watch that "Wanted Cleaning" 

Bothersome People .... 

Pleasant Ghosts .... 

The Pettibone Lineage 

Getting Home again 

How TO Rough it ... . 

An Old-Time Scholar . 

Diamonds and Pearls 

The Author of "Paul and Virginia 

If I were a Boy again 



PAGE 

3 
65 

83 
95 
111 
119 
139 
147 
161 
179 
197 
209 
251 
277 



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MY PEIEITD'S LIBEAET. 



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MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 




THINK it was Jean Paul who said he 
always looked on a library as a learned 
conversation. But there are libraries 
and libraries. 

H. L. told me he once found a foolish, pedan- 
tic old millionnaire curled up in a luxurious 
apartment, walled with richly bound books, not 
one of which he had ever read, but all of which 
he pretended to have devoured. L. says that 
when he entered this room, bestudded with 
glittering tomes, the proprietor exclaimed : " And 
so you have found me out at last, alone with 
my books ! Here 's where I hide away from the 
family, day after day, and nobody's none the 



8 MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

plan Zeus by Phidias, and D. has the same opin- 
ion of those unhappy mortals who are translated 
before they have handled his sumptuous Hor- 
ace in Hayday's magnificent morocco. 

The biographer of Dickens (John Forster) had 
assembled a library worthy of himself, which is 
not unmeaning eulogy. It was full of what 
Lamb calls "Great Nature's Stereotypes," the 
" eterne " copies that never can grow stale or 
unproductive, and to have spent a day in it 
with the host for indicator, and Dickens for 
co-enthusiast, is a memory forever. Manuscripts 
of Goldsmith, Swift, Johnson, Sterne, Addison, 
Burke, Fielding, and Smollet, together with the 
original draughts of " David Copperfield," " Oliver 
Twist," and a dozen other books from the same 
glowing hand and brain, were not to be handled 
without a thrill ! 

I once had the privilege of walking about in 
Wordsworth's library, and being shown by the 
poet himself many of the jewels it contained. I 
recall what I saw and heard there with a kind of 
transport even now, although it is more than 



MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 9 

twenty-five years since I stood beside the vener- 
able author of "The Excursion" while he jjointed 
out in the margins of his books what Coleridge, 
Lamb, and Southey had noted there. 

Lord Houghton's library also is one of the most 
attractive in England, especially in poetry and 
autographs. Alexander Dyce, the editor of 
"Beaumont and Fletcher," had marvels to show 
me in his fine old book-rooms in Gray's Inn, 
thirty years ago. But perhaps the most inter- 
esting to me of all tire private libraries I have 
ever seen in England was the small collection 
of Charles and Mary Lamb, which Edward 
Moxon the publisher unlocked for me when I 
was first in England, before the books were 
dispersed, as they never ought to have been. 
Then and there I lovingly handled his Kit Mar- 
lowe, his Drummond of Hawthornden, his Dray- 
ton, his Cowley, and his Burton ! I remember 
how Moxon's whole family stood around that 
*' Life of the Duke of Newcastle by his Duchess," 
and told stories of Lamb's enthusiasm over the 
book, a volume about which he has written, " No 



10 MY FR J END'S LIBRAE T. 



casket is rich enough, no ctising sufficiently dura- 
ble, to honor and keep safe such a jewel." 

One of the selectest household libraries in 
America has lately been left desolate. Our new 
Minister to Spain leaves behind him a family of 
"literary magnificos" at Elmwood not easily to 
be surpassed anywhere ; and altho\igh we are all 
proud of the call his country sends him to aid 
and honor her in the land of Cervantes, wo 
lament the necessary absence which now renders 
it impossible for our bd'oved professor to give, 
as his wonted address, "Among my Books." 

I scarcely know a greater pleasure than to be 
allowed for a whole day to spend the hours unmo- 
lested in my friend A.'s library. So much jn-iv- 
ilege abounds there, I call it Urhanxty Hall. It is 
a plain, modestly appointed apartment, overlook- 
ing a broad sheet of water ; and I can see, from 
where I like to sit and read, the sail-boats go tilt- 
ing ])y, and glancing across the bay. Sometimes, 
when a rainy day sets in, I run down to my 
friend's house, and ask leave to browse about the 
librujy, — not so mucli for the sake of reading, a.s 



MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. H 

for the intense enjoyment I have in turning over 
the books that have a personal history attached. 
Many of them once belonged to authors whose 
libraries have been dispersed. My friend has 
enriched her editions with autographic notes of 
those fine spirits who wrote the books which illu- 
mine her shelves, so that one is constantly coming 
upon some fresh treasure in the way of a literary 
curiosity. I am apt to discover something new 
every time I take down a folio or a miniature 
volume. As I ramble on from slielf to shelf, 
" Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures," 
and the hours often slip by into the afternoon, 
and glide noiselessly into twilight, before dinner- 
time is remembered. 

Drifting about only a few days ago, I came by 
accident upon a magic quarto, shabby enough iu 
its exterior, with one of the covers hanging by 
the eyelids, and otherwise sadly battered, to the 
great disfigurement of its external aspect. I did 
not remember even to have seen it in the library 
before (it turned out to be a new-comer), and was 
about to pass it by with an unkind thought as to 



12 MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

its pauper condition, when it occiuTed to mc, .-is 
the lettering was obHterated from the back, I 
might as well open to the title-page and learn the 
name at least of the tattered stranger. And I 
was amply rewarded for the attention. It turned 
out to be " The Novels and Tales of the Renowned 
John Boccaccio, The first Refiner of Italian Prose : 
containing A Hundred Curious Novels, by Seven 
Honorable Ladies and Three Noble Gentlemen, 
Framed in Ten Days." It was printed in London 
in 1684, "for Awnsham Churchill, at the Black 
Swan at Amen Corner." But what makes this old 
yellow-leaved book a treasure-volume for all time 
is the inscription on the first fly-leaf, in the hand- 
WTiting of a man of genius, who, many years ago, 
wrote thus on the blank page : — 

" To Marianne Hunt. 
" Her Boccaccio {alter et idem) come back to her after 
many years' absence, for her good-nature in giving it 
away in a foreign country to a traveller whose want of 
books was still worse than her own. 
" From her att'ectionate husband, 

Leiuh Hunt. 
"August 23, 1839 — Chklska, Enulano." 



MY FRIENDS LFBRARY. 13 

This record tells a most interesting story, and 
reveals to us an episode in the life of the poet, 
well worth the knowing. I hope no accident will 
ever cancel this old leather-bound veteran from 
the world's bibliographic treasures. Spare it, Fire, 
Water, and Worms ! for it does the heart good to 
handle such a quarto. 

One does not need to look far among the shelves 
in my friend's library to find companion-gems of 
this antiquated tome. Among so many of 

"The assembled souls of all that men held wise," 

there is no solitude of the mind. I reach out 
my hand at random, and, lo ! the first edition of 
Milton's " Paradise Lost " ! It is a little brown 
volume, "Printed by S. Simmons, and to be 
sold by S. Thomson at the Bishop's-Head iu 
Duck Lane, by H. Mortlack at the White Hart 
in Westminster Hall, M. Walker under St. Dun- 
stan's Church in Fleet Street, and R. Boulten 
at the Turk's Head in Bishopsgate Street, 1G68." 
Foolish old Simmons deemed it necessary to insert 
over his own name the following notice, which 
heads the Argument to the Poem : — ■ 



14 31 Y FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

"The Printer to the Eeader. 
"Courteous Reader, There was no Argument at first 
intended to the Book, but for the satisfaction of many 
that have desired it, I have procured it, and withall a 
reason of that which stumLled many others, why the 
Poem Rimes not." 

The " Argument," which Milton omitted in sub- 
sequent editions, is very curious throughout ; and 
the reason which the author gives, at the request 
of Mr. Publisher Simmons, why the poem "Rimes 
not," is quaint and well worth transcribing an 
extract here, as it does not always appear in more 
modern editions. Mr. Simmons's Poet is made 
to say, — 

"The Measure is English Heroic Verse without 
Rime, as that of Homers in Greek, and of Virgil in 
Latin; Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true Or- 
nament of Poem or good Verse, in longer AVorks espe- 
cially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off 
wretched matter and lame Meeter ; grac't indeed since 
by the use of some famous modern Poets, carried away 
by Custom, but nuich to thir own vexation, hindrance, 
luid constraint to express iuany things otherwise, and 



MY FRIENirS LIBRARY. 15 

for the most part worse then else they would have ex- 
prest thein." 

We give the orthography precisely as Milton 
gave it in this his first edition. 

There is a Table of Errata prefixed to this old 
copy, in which the reader is told, 

*'for hundreds read hnmlerds. 
"for we read wee.'" 

Master Simmons's proof-reader was no adept in 
his art, if one may judge from the countless errors 
which he allowed to creep into this immortal 
poem when it first appeared in print. One can 
imagine the identical copy now before us being 
handed over the coiniter in Duck Lane to some 
eager scholar on the lookout for a new sensation, 
and handed back again to Mr. Thomson as too 
dull a looking poem for his perusal. Mr. Edmund 
Waller entertained that idea of it, at any rate. 

One of the sturdiest little books in my friend's 
library is a thick-set, stumpy old copy of Richard 
Baxter's " Holy Commonwealth," written in 1659, 
and, as the title-page informs us, " at the invita- 



16 MY FRIEND'S LTBRARY. 

tion of James Harrington Esquire," — as one 
would take a glass of Canar}-, — by invitation ! 
There is a preface addressed " To all those in the 
Army or elsewhere, that have caused our many 
and great Eclipses since 1G4G." The worms have 
made dagger-holes through and through the " in- 
spired leaves " of this fat little volume, till much 
strong thinking is now very perforated printing. 
On the fly-leaf is written, in a rough, straggling 
hand, 

" William Wordsworth, 

" Rydal Mount." 

The poet seems to have read the old hook pretty 
closely, for there are evident marks of his liking 
throughout its pages. 

Connected with the Bard of the Lakes is an- 
other work in my friend's librar}^ which I always 
handle with a tender interest. It is a copy of 
Wordsworth's Poetical Works, printed in 1815, 
with all the alterations afterwards made in the 
pieces copied in by the poet from tlie edition pub- 
lished in 1827. Some of the changes are marked 



MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 17 

improvements, and nearly all make the meaning 
clearer. Now and then a prosaic phrase gives 
place to a more poetical expression. The well- 
known lines, 

*' Of Him who Avalked in glory and in joy, 
Following his plough along the mountain-side," 

read at first, 

"Behind his plough upo7i the mountain-side." 

In a well-preserved quarto copy of " Rasselas," 
•with illustrations by Smirke, which my friend 
picked up in London a few years ago, I found the 
other day an unpublished autograph letter from 
Dr. Johnson, so characteristic of the great man 
that it is worth transcribing. It is addressed 

" To the Reverend Mr. Compton. 
" To be sent to Mrs. Williams." 

And it is thus worded : — 

" Sir, — Your business, I suppose, is in a way of as 
easy progress as such business ever has. It is seldom 
that event keeps pace with expectation. 

" The scheme of your book I cannot say that I fully 
comprehend. I would not have you ask less than an 
hundred guineas, for it seems a large octavo. 



18 ^ry friend- s library. 

" Go to M'. Davis, in Russell Street, show him this 
letter, and .show hiiii the book if he desires to see it. 
He will tell you what hopes you may form, and to 
what Bookseller you should apply. 

" If you succeed in selling your book, you raa}^ do 
better than by dedicating it to me. You may perhaps 
obtain permission to dedicate it to the Bishop of Lon- 
don, or to D^ Vyse, and make way by your book to 
more advantage than I can procure you. 

" Please to tell Mrs. Williams that I grow better, 

and that I wish to know how she goes on. You, Sir, 

may write for her to, 

" Sir, 

" Your most humble Servant, 

" Sam : Johnson. 
"Oclo 24, 1782." 

Dear kind-hearted old bear ! On turning to 
BoswcU's Life of his Ursine Majesty, we learn who 
Mr. Compton was. When the Doctor visited 
France in 1775, the Benedictine Monks in Paris 
entertained him in the most friendly way. One 
of them, the Rev. James Compton, wlio had left. 
England at the early age of six to reside on tlie 
Continent, questioned liini pretty closely about 



MY FR/EyD'S LIBRARY. 19 

tlie Protestant faith, and proposed, if at some fu- 
ture time ho should go to England to consider the 
subject more deeply, to call at Bolt Court. In 
the summer of 1782 he paid the Doctor a visit, 
and informed him of his desire to be admitted 
into the Church of England. Johnson managed 
the matter satisfixctorily for him, and he was re- 
ceived into communion in St. James's Parish 
Church. Till the end of January, 1783, he lived 
entirely at the Doctor's expense, his own means 
being very scanty. Through Johnson's kindness 
lie was nominated Chaplain at the French Chapel 
of St. James's, and in 1802 we hear of him as 
being quite in favor with the excellent Bishop 
Porteus and several other distinguished London- 
ers. Thus, by the friendly hand of the hard- 
working, earnest old lexicographer, Mr. Compton 
was led from deep poverty up to a secure compe- 
tency, and a place among the influential digni- 
taries of London society. Poor enough himself, 
Johnson never fell back, when there was an 
honest person in distress to be helped on in the 
battle of life. God's blessing on his memory for 
all his sympathy with struggling humanity ! 



20 MV FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

My friend has an ardent affection for Walter 
Scott and Charles Lamb. I find the first edition 
of '' Marmion," i)rinted in 1808, "by J. Ballan- 
tyne & Co. for Archibald Constable and Company, 
Edinburgh," most carefully bound in savory Rus- 
sia, standing in a pleasant corner of the room. 
Being in quarto, the type is regal. Of course the 
copy is enriched with a letter in the handwriting 
of Sir Walter. It is addressed to a personal 
friend, and is dated April 17, 1825. The closing 
passage in it is of especial interest. 

" I have seen Sheridan's last letter imploring Rogers 
to come to his assistance. It stated that he was dying, 
and concluded abruptly Avith these words 'they are 
throwing the things out of window.' The memorialist 
certainly took pennyworths out of his friend's charac- 
ter. — I sat three hours for my picture to Sir Thomas 
Lawrence during which the w^hole conversation was 
filled up by Rogers wdth stories of Sheridan, for the 
least of which if true he deserved the gallows. 
" Ever Yours, 

" Walter Scott." 

In the Ai)ril of 1802 Scott was living in a pretty 



MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 21 

cottage at Lasswade ; and while there he sent otf 
the following- letter, which I find attached with a 
wafer to my friend'a copy of the Abbotsford edi- 
tion of his works, and written in a mnch plainer 
hand than he afterwards fell into. The address 
is torn off. 

" Sir, — I esteem myself honored by the polite re- 
ception which you have given to the Border Min- 
strelsy and am particularly flattered that so very good 
a judge of poetical Antiquities finds any reason to be 
pleased with the work. — There is no portrait of the 
Flower of Yarrow in existence, nor do I think it very 
probable that any was ever taken. Much family anec- 
dote concerning her has been preserved among her 
descendants of whom I have the honor to be one. 
The epithet of ' Flower of Yarrow ' was in later times 
bestowed upon one of her immediate posterity, Miss 
Mary Lillias Scott, daughter of John Scott Es(p of 
Harden, and celebrated for her beauty in the pastoral 
song of Tweedside, — I mean that set of modern words 
which begins ' What beauty does Flora disclose.' 
This lady I myself remember very well, and I men- 
tion her to you lest you should receive any inaccurate 
information owing to her being called like her prede- 



22 MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

cesser the 'Flower of Yarrow.' There was a portrait 
of this latter lady in the collection at Hamilton which 
the present Duke transferred through my hands to 
Lady Diana Scott relict of the late Walter Scott Esq. 
of Harden, which picture was vulgarly but inaccurately 
supposed to have been a resemblance of the original 
Mary Scott, daughter of Philip Scott of Dryhope, and 
married to Auld Wat of Harden in the middle of the 
16"' century. 

" I shall be particularly happy if upon any future 
occasion I can in the slightest degree contribute to 
advance your valuable and patriotic labours, and I re- 
main, Sir, " Your very faithful 

" and ob*. Servant 

"Walter Scott." 

Old Bernard Lintott, at the Cross-Keys in Fleet 
Street, brought out in 1714 "The Rape of the 
Lock, an Heroi-Comical Poem, in Five Cantos, 
written by M^ Pope." He printed certain words 
in the title-page in red, and other certain words 
in black ink. His own name and Mr. Pope's he 
chose to exhibit in sanguinary tint. A copy of 
this edition, very much thumbed and wanting half 
a dozen leaves, fell into the possession of Charles 



MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 23 

L'cunb more than a hundred years after it was pub- 
lished. Charles bore it home, and set to work 
at once to supply, in his small neat hand, from 
another edition, what was missing from the text 
in his stall-bought copy. As he paid only sixpence 
for his prize, he could well aftbrd the time it took 
him to write in on blank leaves, which he inserted, 
the lines from 

"Tims far both armies to BeliiiJa yiekl," 
onward to the couplet, 

" And tlirice they twitch'd the Diamond in her Ear, 
Thrice slie look'd back, and thrice the Foe drew near." 

Besides this autographic addition, enhancing 
forever the value of this old copy of Pope's im- 
mortal poem, I find the following little note, in 
Lamb's clerkly chirography, addressed to 
" M'. Wainright, on Thursday. 

" Dear Sir, — The Wits (as Clare calls us) assemble 
at my cell (20 Russell Street, Cov. Gar.) this evening 

at \ before 7. Cold meat at 9. Puns at a little 

after. M^ Cary wants to see you, to scold you. I 
hope you will not fail. 

" Yours &c. &c. &c. 

" C. Lamb." 



24 MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

There are two books in my friend's library 
which once belonged to the author of the " Elegy 
in a Country Churchyard." One of them is " A 
Voyage to and from tlie Island of Borneo, in the 
East Indies : printed for T. Warner at the Black 
Boy, and F. Batley at the Dove, in 1718." It 
has the name of T. Gray, written by himself, in 
the middle of the title-page, as was his custom 
always. Before Gray owned this book, it belonged 
to Mr. Antrobus, his uncle, who wrote many origi- 
nal notes in it. The volume has also this manu- 
script memorandum on one of the fly-leaves, 
signed by a well-known naturalist not long ago 
living in England : — 

"August 28, 1851. 

" This book has Gray's autograph on the title-page, 
written in his usual neat hand. It has twice been 
my fate to witness the sale of Gray's most interesting 
collection of manuscripts and hooks, and at the last 

sale I purchased tliis volume. I present it to 

as a little token of affectionate regard by her old 
friend, now in his So"" year. 

"Edwd. Jesse." 

AVho will not be willing to admit the great 



MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 25 

good-luck of my friend in having such a donor 
for an acquaintance ? 

But one of the chief treasures in the library 
of which I write is Gray's copy of Milton's " Po- 
ems upon several occasions. Both English and 
Latin. Printed at the Blew Anchor next Mitre 
Court over against Fetter Lane in Fleet Street." 
When a boy at school, Gray owned and read this 
charming old volume, and he has printed his 
name, school-boy fashion, all over the title-page. 
Wherever there is a vacant space big enough to 
hold Thomas Gray, there it stands in faded ink, 
still fading as time rolls on. The Latin poems 
seem to have been most carefully conned by the 
youthful Etonian, and we know how much he 
esteemed them in after-life. 

Scholarly Robert Southey once owned a book 
that now towers aloft in my friend's library. It 
is a princely copy of Ben Jonson, the Illustrious. 
Southey lent it, when he possessed the magmjico^ 
to Coleridge, who has begemmed it all over with 



26 MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

his fine poncillings. As Ben onee handled the 
trowel, and did other honorable work as a brick- 
layer, Coleridge discourses with much golden gos- 
sip about the craft to which the great dramatist 
once belonged. My friend would hardly thank 
me, if I filled ten of these pages with extracts 
from the rambhng dissertations in S. T. C.'s hand- 
writing which I find in her rai-e folio, but I could 
easily pick out that amount of readable matter 
from the inargins. One manuscript anecdote, 
however, I must transcribe from the last leaf. I 
think Coleridge got the story from " The Seer." 

" An Irish laliorer laid a wager with another hod- 
heai'er that the latter could not carry him up the lad- 
der to the top of a house in his hod, without letting 
him fall. The bet is accepted, and iip they go. There 
is peril at every step. At the top of the ladder there 
is life and the loss of the wager, — death and success 
below ! The highest point is reached in safety ; the 
wagerer looks humbled and disappointed. 'Well,' 
said he, 'you have won ; there is no doubt of that; 
worse luck to you another time ; but at the third 

story I HAD HOPES.' " 

In a quaint old edition of " The Spectator," 



J/F FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 27 

which seems to have been through many sieges, 
and must have come to grief very early in its 
existence, if one may judge anything from the 
various names which are scrawled upon it in 
different years, reaching back almost to the date 
pf its publication, I find this note in the hand- 
writing of Addison, sticking fast on the reverse 
side of his portrait. It is addressed to Ambrose 
Philips, and there is no doubt that he w^ent where 
he was bidden, and found the illustrious author 
quite ready to receive him at a well-furnished 
table. 

"Taesflay Night. 

"Sir, — If you are at leisure for an hour, your 

company will be a great obligation to 

"Y^ most humble sev*. 

"J. Addison. 
"Fountain Tavern." 

That night at the " Fountain," perchance, they 
discussed that war of words which might then 
have been raging between the author of the " Pas- 
torals" and Mr. Pope, dampening their clay, at 
the same time, with a compound to which they 
were both notoriously inclined. 



28 31 Y FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

My friend rides hard her hobby for choice edi- 
tions, and she hunts with a will whenever a good 
old copy of a well-beloved author is np for pur- 
suit. She is not a fop in binding, but she must 
have apjn-ojwiate dresses for her favorites. She 
knows what 

''Adds a precious seeing to the eye" 

as well as Hayday himself, and never lets her 
folios shiver when they ought to be warm.' More- 
over, she reach her books, and, like the scholar 
in Chaucer, would rather have 

** At her beddes head 
A twentj' bokes, clothed in black and red, 
Of Aristotle and his i)hilosophy, 
Than robes rich, or fiddle, or psaltrie." 

I found her not long ago deep in a volume of 
" Mr. Welstcd's Poems " ; and as that author is 
not particularly lively or inviting to a modem 
reader, I begged to know why he was thus hon- 
ored. " I was trying," said she, " to learn, if 
possible, why Dicky Steele should have made his 
daughter a birthday gift of these poems. This 



MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 29 

cojjy I found on a stall in Fleet Street many years 
ago, and it has in Sir Richard's handwriting this 
inscription on one of the fly-leaves : — 

Elizabeth Steele 

Her Book 

Giv'n by Her Father 

Richard Steele. 
March 2Ct\ 1723. 

Running my eye over the pieces, I find a poem 
in praise of ' Apple-Pye,' and one of the passages 
in it is marked, as if to call the attention of 
young Eliza to something worthy her notice. 
These are the lines the young lady is charged 
to remember : — 

*Dear Nelly, learn with Care the Pastry- Art, 
And. mind the easy Precepts I impart : 
Draw out your Dough elaborately thin, 
And cease not to fatigue your Rolling-Pin : 
Of Eggs and Butter see you mix enough ; 
For then the Paste will swell into a Puif, 
Which will in crumpling Sounds your Praise report, 
And eat, as Housewives speak, exceeding short.' " 

Who was Abou Ben Ad hem 1 Was his exist- 
ence merely in the poet's brain, or did he walk 



30 .MY FRIEND'S LlDRARr. 

this planet somewhere, — and when"? In a copy 
of the " Biblioth^que Orientale," which once be- 
longed to the author of that exquisite little gem 
of poesy beginning with a wish that Abou's tribe 
might increase, I find (the leaf is lovingly turned 
down and otherwise noted) the following account 
of the forever famous dreamer. 

"Adhem was the name of a Doctor celebrated for 
Mussulman traditions. He was the contemporary of 
Aamarsch, another relater of traditions of the first 
class. Adheni had a son noted for his doctrine and 
his piety. The Mussulmans place him among the 
number of their Saints who have done miracles. He 
was named Abou-Ishak-Ben- Adhem. It is said he 
was distinguished for his piety from his earliest youtli, 
and that he joined the Softs, or the Religious sect in 
Mecca, under the direction of Fodhail. He went from 
there to Damas, where he died in the year 106 of the 
Hegira. He undertook, it is said, to make a pilgrim- 
age from Mecca, and to pass through the desert alone 
and without provisions, making a thousand genuflex- 
ions for every mile of the way. It is added that he 
was twelve years in making this journey, during which 
he was often tempted and alarmed by Demons. The 



MY fri/:nd'S library. 31 

Khalife Haroim Raschid, making the same pilgrimage, 
met him upon the way and in(iuired after his welfare ; 
the Sofi answered him with an Arabian quatrain, of 
which this is the meaning : — 

" ' We mend the rags of this worldly robe with the 
pieces of the robe of Religion, which we tear apart for 
this end ; 

" ' And we do our work so thoroughly that nothing 
remains of the latter, 

" ' And the garment we mend escapes out of our 
bands. 

" ' Happy is the servant who has chosen God for 
his master, and who employs his present good only 
to acquire those which he awaits/ 

"It is related also of Abou, that he saw^ in a 
dream an Angel who wrote, and that having de- 
manded what he was doing, the Angel answered, 'I 
write the names of those who love God sincerely, 
those who perform Malek-Ben-Dinar, Thabel-al-Be- 
nani, Aioud-al-Sakhtiani, etc' Then said he to the 
Angel, 'Am I not placed among these?' 'No,' re- 
plied the Angel. 'Ah, w^ell,' said he, 'write me, 
then, I pray you, for love of these, as the friend of 
all who love the Lord.' It is added, that the same 
Angel revealed to him soon after that he had received 



32 MV FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

an order from God to place liim at the head of all 
the rest. This is the same Abai ^vho said that he 
preferred Hell with the will of God to Paradise witli- 
oiit it ; or, as another writer relates it : ' I love Hell, 
if I am doing the will of God, better than the eiijoy- 
ments of Paradise and disobedience.'" 

With books printed by "B. Franklin, Phila- 
delphia," my friend's library is richly stored. 
One of them is " The Charter of Privileges, 
granted by AVilliam Penn Esq : to the Inhabi- 
tants of Pennsylvania and Territories." " Printed 
AND Sold by B. Franklin" looks odd enough 
on the dingy title-page of this old volume, and 
the contents are full of interest. Rough days 
were those when "Jehu Curtis" was "Speaker 
of the House," and put liis name to such docu- 
ments as this : — 

" And Be it Further Enacted by the authority afore- 
said, That if any Person shall wilfully or premedi- 
tately be guilty of Blasphemy, and shall thereof 
be legally convicted, the Person so offending shall, 
for every such Offence, be set in the Pillory for the 
space of Two Hours, and be branded on his or her 



MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 33 

Foresheacl with the letter B, and be publickly whipt, 
on his or her bare Back, with Thirty nine Lashes 
ivell laid on." 

My friend is a collector of the various editions 
of Hawthorne's writings, not only in English 
but in various languages. Many of the works 
she has illustrated with choice engravings, pho- 
tographs, and autographs. One of the letters 
in Hawthorne's handwriting thus added seems 
to me very curious in its accurate foreshadow- 
ings. It was written forty-five years ago to 
Franklin Pierce, when both young men could 
not have been long out of College. Its pro- 
phetic intimations in the light of what has since 
occurred in Pierce's career sound weird and start- 
ling and the epistle is worth perusal. It is ad- 
dressed to Colonel Franklin Pierce, Hillsboro', 
New Hampshire. 

"Salem, June 28, 1832. 

" Dear Mr. Speaker, — I sincerely congratulate 

you on all your public honors, in possession or in 

prospect. If they continue to accumulate so rapidly, 

you will be at the summit of political eminence by 



34 MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

that time of life when men are usually just begin- 
ning to make a figiue. I suppose there is hardly a 
limit to your expectations at this moment ; and I 
really cannot see why there should be any. If I 
were in your place I should like to proceed by the 
following steps, — after a few years in Congress, to 
be chosen Governor, say at thirty years old, — next 
a Senator in Congress, — then minister to England, — 
then to be put at the head of one of the Departments 
(that of War would suit you, I should think), and 
lastly — but it will be time enough to think of the 
next step some years hence. You cannot imagine 
how proud I feel, when I recollect that I myself 
was once in office with you on the standing Com- 
mittee of the Athenean Society. That was my first 
and last appearance in public life. 

"I read the paper which you sent me from begin- 
ning to end, not forgetting Colonel Pierce's neat and 

appropriate address. I also perused 's speech in 

favor of grog-shops ; he seems to have taken quite a 
characteristic and consistent course in this respect, 
and I presume he gives the retail dealers as much of 
his personal patronage as ever. I was rather sur- 
prised at not finding more of my acquaintance in 

your Legislature. Your own name and 's were 

all that I recognized. 



3fY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 35 

" I was making preparations for a Northern tour 
when this accursed cholera broke out in Canada. It 
was my intention to go by way of New York and 
Albany to Niagara ; from thence to Montreal and 
Quebec, and home through Vermont and New Hamp- 
shire. I am very desirous of making this journey on 
account of a book by which I intend to acquire an 
(undoubtedly) immense literary reputation, but which 
I cannot commence writing till I have visited Can- 
ada. I still hope that the pestilence will disappear, 
so that it may be safe to go in a month or two. If 
my route brings me into the vicinity of Hillsboro' I 
shall certainly visit you. As to the cholera, if it 
comes, I believe I shall face it here. By the by, I 
have been afflicted for two days past with one of the 
symptoms of it, which makes me write rather a trem- 
ulous hand. I keep it secret, however, for fear of 
being sent to the hospital. 

"I suppose your election to Congress is absolutely 
certain. Of course, however, there will be an oppo- 
sition, and I wish you would send me some of the 
newspapers containing articles either laudatory or 
abusive of you. I shall read them with great inter- 
est, be they what they may. It is a pity that I am 
not in a situation to exercise my pen -in your behalf. 



30 AfY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

though you seem not to need the assistance of news- 
paper scribblers. 

"I do not feel very well, and will close my letter 
here, especially as your many associations would not 
permit you to read a longer one. I shall be happy 
to hear from you as often as you can find leisure 
and inclination to write, 

^' I observe that the paper styles you the ' Hon. 
Franklin Pierce.' Have you alread}" an official claim 
to that title ? 

" Your friend, 

" Nath. Hawthorne, 

^' alias, 'Hath.'" 

The first edition of the "Pickwick Papers" 
has now grown to be a rare volume, and is not 
readily picked up even in London. Dickens was 
not the owner of a copy, and long desired to 
possess one on account of the early impressions 
of the forty-three illustrations in it by Seymour 
and " Phiz." One day my friend A. was stroll- 
ing about London, and coming into the Hay- 
market observed a bookseller placing in his win- 
dow a handsomely bound volume in red morocco. 
She had got* b}-, but some good genius whis- 



AfV FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 37 

pered to her, " Turn back, — that is a book yoii 
have long burned to become the owner of ! " 
" Go on ! " insinuated another kind of genius ; 
"you will be late to dinner if you loiter another 
moment ! " She turned back, notwithstanding, 
and bought the book : it was the first edition 
of "Pickwick"! Mark her good luck, reader! 
Taking the book to her hotel, she laid it on the 
table and went out again after dinner. Return- 
ing late in the evening she found Dickens had 
called upon her : the volume was lying open, 
and this inscription, in a well-known hand, en- 
riched her prize : — 

CHARLES DICKENS 

Wishes he had given this First Edition of riclcwick 

TO HIS FRIENDS, 

* * * ♦ 

In Witness that he did not. 

He, at Edward's Hotel, George Street, 

Hanover Square, London, 

Hereunto sets his hand. 

On Saturday, 24''' July, 1869. 

C. D. 

And this precious volume, thus enriched, is not 
the least among my friend's possessions. 



38 MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

My friend has a habit of placing on the fly- 
leaves of many of her books any interesting, out- 
of-the-way things she may happen to find with 
reference to their authors, — a custom that cannot 
be too warmly commended to all book-owners. 
Ho\^ welcome is such a record as this one, for in- 
stance ! Nearly fifty years ago there appeared a 
charming work written by a lieutenant hi our 
navy, named Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, enti- 
tled " A Year in Spain, by a Young American." 
On his way to Segovia, the youthful officer fell in 
with a stripling fresh from the State of Maine, 
imknown at that time, of course, but who has 
since become a power in literature, not only in his 
own countrj^, but all over the civilized world. 
This is the pleasant glimpse Mackenzie gives us 
of the Longfellow of half a century ago : — 

" Fortune, in a happy moment, provided a compan- 
ion for me in the person of a young countryman, Mho 
had come to Spain in search of instruction. He was 
just from college, full of the ardent feeling excited by 
classical pursuits, with health unbroken, hope that was 
a stranger to disappointment, curiosity which had 



3fY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 39 

never yet been fed to satiety. He had sunny locks, 
a fresh complexion, and a clear blue eye, — all indi- 
cations of a joyous temperament. We had l)een thrown 
almost alone together in a strange and unknown land. 
Our ages were not dissimilar, and, though our previous 
occupations had been so, we were nevertheless soon ac- 
([uainted, first with each other, then with each other's 
views, and presently after we had agreed to be com- 
panions on the journey." 

On the same leaf with this extract I find in- 
serted these words by Cardinal Wiseman, spoken 
forty years after Mackenzie met young Long- 
fellow in Spain : — 

" Our hemisphere cannot claim the honor of having 
brought him forth, but he still belongs to us, for his 
works have become household words wherever the lan- 
guage is spoken. I am sure that all who hear my voice 
will join with me in the tribute I pay to the genius of 
Longfellow." 

And here is still another appended tribute in 
the same volume, copied from the Life and Letters 
of a distinguished lady in England : — 

" I have just received a long and welcome letter 



40 MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

liom my Boston correspoiideiit, in answer to one I 
had written to him asking for some particiihxrs about 
Longfellow, whose beautiful poems are now so much 

read here I will copy some of my fiiend's 

exact words about the poet, as they are sure to interest 
you. 'I never knew a man of more endearing 
qualities. He has no little animosities ; no petty, vin- 
dictive feelings ; and if he can help any poor, envious 
creature who may have tried to wound his feelings by 
a malicious or ill-timed critirifm, he never limits his 
charity on that account. He says, " If we could read 
the secret history of our enemies, we should find in 
each man's life sorrow and sufi"ering enough to disarm 
all hostility." .... Every one near him loves him, 
and his neighbors rejoice in his fame and his prosper- 
ity. He always has a good word to put in for any 
unfortunate man or woman who happens to be up for 
conversational dissection ; and I have often noticed, 
when all the rest of the com])any have been busy pull- 
ing to "shreds and patches" some new and ridiculous 
rhymer, Longfellow has culled and got ready to quote, 
in the dull bard's favor, the only good line perhaps in 
the whole volume. I never saw a man so constantly 
on the lookout to aid and comfort, and never by any 
accident, even, to depress a fellow-mortal. If any one 



MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 41 



of Ms friends is ill, he is the first person who remem- 
bers to send in cheering little messages, accompanied, 
perhaps, by some sick-ro(jm delicacy, not easily to be 
obtained elsewhere, for the patient. I have lived, as 
you know, a long time among authors, but I never 
knew one so absolutely free from all manner of vanities 
and vices as Longfellow He is the soul of good- 
nature and candor ; and his whole life has been spent 
not only in strengthening the foundations of truth and 
justice, but in lending a vigorous helping hand to all 
below him in station and ability. In short, he is one 
of the most lovable men in America, as well as the 
most distinguished poet.'" 

My friend's copy of " Warton's History of Eng^ 
lish Poetry" is in three volumes quarto, and it 
once belonged to no less a character than Mr. 
Horatio Walpole, of Strawberry Hill, who has 
packed it with notes in his own neat penman- 
ship. Some former owner has added to the first 
volume a long and curious autograph letter from 
Warton, and an equally interesting epistle in Wal- 
pole's handwriting. It is curious to follow the 
notes in this edition, and see how carefidly Wal- 
pole has studied Warton in this work. He seems 



12 MY FRIEND'S LIBRAE Y. 

to have been specially Dioved by the earliest- Eng- 
lish love-song on record, written about the year 
1200, and beginning, — 

"Blow Dortherne wynd," etc. 

Walpole has appended this note at the bottom 
of one of the pages in Vol. I. in ink as fresh as if 
it had been written to-day : — 

" A coachman of George 2% who had been harassed 
by driving the Maids of Honour, left his fortune to his 
son, but with a promise that he should never marry a 
Maid of Honour." 

Other remarks, both in pencil and ink, by Wal- 
pole, abound in the volumes, and many of them 
arc as keen as this one in the famous letters of 
the brilliant epigrammatist. He was, it seems, 
much diverted with the manoeuvres of a certain 
Mrs. Holman, "whose passion," he says, "is keep- 
ing an assembly, and inviting literally everybody 
in it. She goes to the drawing-room to watch for 
sneezes ; whips out a courtesy ; and then sends 
next morning to know how your cold does, and to 
desire your company next Thursday!" 



J/r FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 43 

All over the margins of my friend's " Wurton " 
the lord of Strawberry Hill is constantly finding 
fault with the author, correcting his proper names 
and worrying his statements. Walpole knew, or 
pretended to know, everybody, not only of his 
own time, but of all time. His enemies used to 
say he bragged a good deal of acquaintances to 
whom he had never spoken a word. Apropos of 
this charge against H. W., we had many years 
ago in Paris an American pretender of this sort. 
When my fellow-traveller, S. G., arrived in the 
French capital twenty years ago, this all-knowing, 
forth-putting countryman of ours called upon him 
and said : " If there is any celebrity you care to 
meet among the French authors, I shall be happy 
to bring you together, as I am on intimate terms 
with all the w^riters." My friend was an admirer 
of Victor Hugo, and jumped at the offer, naming 
him as the man he most desired to see. " That 
shall be brought about shortly," replied the uni- 
versal intimate of everybody worth knowing in 
Paris. *' Victor Hugo and I are very old friends, 
and he will be glad to see you on my account," he 



44 My FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

continued. A week or so after tliis conversation, 
my friend was at one of Laniartine's Sunday recep- 
tions, and stood talking some time with a gentle- 
man to whom Madame Lamartiue had presented 
him. The kind-hearted American who had prom- 
ised an introduction to Hugo was also in the room, 
and, observing G. in conversation with a rather 
distinguished-looking person, came up when they 
had separated, and asked G. who that tall, hand- 
some individual might be. "0, that," said G., 
with freezing nonchalance^ — " that is your friend, 
Victor Hugo / '* 

Among the books which I take down with 
special delight is a rough old copy of " Diogenes 
Laertius " in Greek and Latin. It belonged to 
Shelley and Leigh Hunt, in partnership, and has 
their names written above the title-page in Hunt's 
best hand, thus, — 

" Percy Shelleij and Leigh Hunt." 
It seems to have been their joint property, and, 
loving each other as they did, they were content 
to own it together. It has luimerous notes in 



MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 45 

both their handwritings. The Greek motto from 
Plato, which Shelley placed at the beginning of 
his exqnisite Elegy on the death of Keats, has 
always been greatly admired. The translation is, 
"You shone, whilst hving, a morning star; but, 
dead, you now shine Hesperus among the shades," 
and it was written by Plato on his friend Stella. 
Laertius preserved it among his own writings, and 
Shelley copied it from him. More than fifty years 
have elapsed since this precious old volume went 
wandering about the Continent with the two young 
English poets, and was thumbed by them on the 
decks of vessels, in the chambers of out-of-the-way 
inns, and under the olive-trees of Pisa and Genoa. 
Half a century has gone by, and lo ! the worn 
and battered book finds itself, after all its jour- 
neys, safely housed and cared for on the shelves 
of my friend's library in a street in Boston. 

There are few things in Charlotte Bronte's 
peculiar chirography more touching than this 
note of September the 29th, 1850, addressed to 
that excellent Mr. Williams, so many years faniil- 



46 MY FR I END'S LIBRARY. 

iar to all ^vho were in the habit of visiting the old 
publishing house of Smith, Eldei*, and Company, 
in London. I find the original placed in my 
friend's copy of [[ Jane Eyre," with this caution 
written opposite : " Be cartful not to disturb this 
precious document^ 

" Dear Sir, — It is my intention to write a few lines 
of remark on ' Wuthering Heights,' which however I 
propose to place apart as a brief preface before the 
tale. I am likewise compelling myself to read it 
over, for the first time of opening the book since 
my sister's death. Its power fills me with renewed 
admiration ; but yet I am oppressed : the reader is 
scarcely ever perndtted a taste of unalloyed pleasure ; 
every beam of suushine is poured down through black 
bars of threatening cloud ; every page is surcharged 
with a sort of moral electricity ; and the w^riter was 
unconscious of all this, — nothing could make her 

conscious of it 

" Yours sincerely, 

"C. Bronte." 

William Blake's Illustrated Volumes occupy 
honored places in my friend's library, for she has 
a irenuine reuard for the man, and a warm feeliuL^" 



31 Y FRIENirS LIBRARY. 47 

for his poems. His weird pictures attract and 
Iiold the attention, just as his poetical pieces 
grapple to the memory. In the copy of " Songs 
of Innocence and Experience " are many charming 
notes pencilled on the margins or on the fly-leaves, 
and this one I transcribe for its intrinsic beauty : 

" When Blake, wliose life had been one of poverty 
and privation, was in his old age and about to die, 
he one day put his hands on the head of a little 
girl, and said, ' May God make this world to you, my 
child, as beautiful as it has been to me ! ' " 

My friend being an ardent admirer of Coleridge, 
has added to her beautiful copy of his works several 
autograph letters that have come into her hands 
from various sources. Everything " rich and 
strange " in that way seems always gravitating to 
her library. Here is a letter which I copy from 
the neat, small page, penned by Coleridge on a 
"Tuesday afternoon, on the 13th of February, 

1827." It is addressed to 

" J. B. Williams, Esq«^. 
" Surgeon, &c. &c., 

" Aldersgate Street." 
and runs thus : — 



48 MY par END'S library. 

"My Dear Williams, — I shall, God permitting, 
be in town and in your neighbourhood to-morrow, 
and shall at least make the attempt of doing, what I 
have some half score of times proposed to Mr. G. that 
we should do conjointly — that is, shake hands with 
you in your own ASKAHIIEION, Latinic Esculapium. 
Your home, I am well aware, is not at your own com- 
mand : and unluckily I am not acquainted with the 
Horology of your daily Routine, or the relations of the 
Wliens to the Wheres in your scheme of successive 
self-distribution. But I will call between One and Two ; 
and i±" I find that you will be in, at any mentionable 
time between that and half past two, I will return at 
the same time, and billet (I should have said label) my- 
self on you for a mutton chop and a potatoe — or what 
I should like better, a few sausages and a potatoe. — 
Were my duodenal digestion brisk enough for me to 
work after dinner, I should always dine from ^ past 
1 to ^ past 2, for that is the only time of the 24 
hours, in which I have any appetite for animal 
food. 

" Gillman has been very poorly, and complains much 
of his head : l)ut he is now much better, Mrs. Gill- 
man is at imr — something between so so, and j;rei<i/ 
tolerable I thank you. 



MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 49 

" With my kind respects to M"^'. W. and Love to the 
young Galenicals, 

" believe me, my dear Williams, 

" With alfectionate esteem and regard 
" Your Sincere friend, 
" S. T. Coleridge. 
"Grove: Highgate." 

From one Opium-Eater to another — to the 
greatest in the annals of Laudanum — is an easy 
transition. Everything relating to Thomas Papa- 
verius, as the "Book-Hunter" calls him, my friend 
has collected, and hoarded in a niche by itself. 
Fragile, unsubstantial, potent, and original, — 
apply these epithets to the only man of this cen- 
tury who includes them all, and you get De 
Quincey, one of the great masters of English, one 
of the most fascinating of all modern writers. 
Every scrap which my friend has collected relat- 
ing to the personnel of this interesting individual 
is of value. Observe the quaint unlikeness in 
this communication to the missive of any one else. 
The note, which is in the fiiirest hand, was ad- 
dressed from Lasswade in Scotland to the Amer- 



50 MY FRIKND-S LIBRARY. 

ic.'xn Editor of Dc Quincey's Writings, who hup- 
pcned at that time to be in England. I find it 
cai"efully pasted into the " Confessions " : it ex- 
plains itself. 

'' Thursday Evening, August 2G. 

" My dear Sir, — The accompanying Lillet from 
my daughter, short at any rate under the pressure of 
instant engagements, has been cut shorter by a sud- 
den and very distressing head-ache. I therefore who 
(from a peculiar nervousness connected with the act 
of writing) so rarely attempt to discharge my own 
debts in the letter-writing department of life, find my- 
self unaccountably, T might say mysteriously, engaged 
in the knight-errantry of undertaking for other peo- 
ple's Wretched bankrupt that I am, with an abso- 
lute refusal on the part of the Commissioner to grant 
me a certificate of the lowest class, — suddenly and by 
a necessity not to be evaded I am afiecting the large 
bounties of supererogation. I appear to be vaporing 
in a spirit of vain-glory ; and yet it is under the mere 
coercion of severe necessities that I am surprised into 
this unparalleled instance of activity. 

" Do you walk ? That is do you like walking for 
4 hours ' on end ' — (which is our archaic expres- 
sion for continuously) ? If I knew that, I w^ould 



3/Y FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 51 

arrange accordingly for meeting you. The case as to 
distances is this; — The Dalkeith railway, from the 
Waverley station, brings you to Esk Bank. That 
is its nearest approach, its 'perihelion, in relation 
to ourselves : and it is precisely 2| miles distant 
from Mavis Brush — the name of our cottage. Close 
to us, and the most noticeable object for guiding your 
inquiries, is — ATr. AuTiandale's Paper Mills. Now 
then, accordingly as you direct my motions, I will — 
rain being supposed absent — join you at your hotel in 
Edinburgh any time after 11 o'clock, and walk out the 
whole distance (7 miles from tlie Scott Monument) ; 
or else I will meet you at Esk Bank ; or, if you prefer 
coming out in a carriage, I will await your coming 
here in that state of motionless repose which best befits 
a philosopher. — Excuse my brevity, and believe that 
with sincere pleasure we shall receive your obliging 
visit. 

" Ever your faithful servant, 

" Thomas De Quincey." 

In a handsorae edition of Sir James Mackin- 
tosh's attractive Memoirs, standing next to the 
Coleridge and De Quincey volumes, I find this 
characteristic autograph, which seems to be a 



52 MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

reply to a dinner invitation from a lady not en- 
tirely known to the Knight. It begins abruptly, 
but gracefully, and is a model rej)ly under the 
circumstances of the case. 

'' Oil Tliou ! wluitever Title please tliiue ear ! 

" whether I am to address you as Ursula or Iphigenia, 
I will dine with you on Friday if I am not obliged to 
leave town. 

" I carmot at this moment lay my hand upon your 
note, and it is from recollection only that I speak of 
Friday as the day for wliich you wrote me. 
" I am, 
" Whether you be a Papist or a Pagan, 
" Alike yours, 

"J. Mackintosh." 

Voyages and Travels abound in my friend's li- 
brary, and among them Edward Lear's beautifully 
illustrated works are conspicuously represented. 
Everybody knows the '^ Nonsense Book" of this 
tricksy spirit, but his books of travel have been 
neglected in America, Perhaps, however, his fun 
lias produced greater effects everywhere than his 
learn inof. 



MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 53 

When a prominent English statesman, some 
years ago, completely disabled by the cares and 
fatigues of his great office, consulted Sir Henry 
Holland, the Court Physician, as to what course 
he should adopt to regain his health and vigor, 
Sir Henry, with profound wisdom, told the Chan- 
cellor to go down to Brighton for a month, and 
take only 07ie book with him. '' Shall it be 
Homer "i " asked the scholar and statesman of the 
physician. " By no means," said the doctor. 
" The volume I recommend is Edward Lear's 
'Book of Nonsense,' one of the healthiest works 
ever written in the kingdom." " And who is 
Edward Lear 1 " inquired the man of state affiiirs. 
" Sir," said the physician, " I am amazed at your 
question ! Edward Lear, sir, is the biographer of 
'that globular person of Hurst,' of 'that uneasy 
old man of the West,' of 'that courageous young 
lady of Norway,' of ' that morbid old man of Ve- 
suvius,' and others of like distinction." The 
statesman retired with his one book to the sea- 
coast, and came back to Downing Street at the 
end of *his vacation a wiser and a healthier man, 
it is said. 



54 MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

I happen to know Edward Lear very well, and 
am glad to have the opportunity of commend- 
ing this gentleman's comic books everywhere. He 
is a great, broad-shouldered, healthy Englishman, 
who spends a large portion of his valuable time in 
making children, especially, happy. He is the 
classmate and much-loved friend of Alfred Tenny- 
son (whose beautiful poem to E. L. means Edward 
Lear) ; and if you chanced, a few years back, to go 
to Farringford about Christmas-time, you would 
have been likely to find a tall, elderly man, in 
enormous goggles, down on all-fours on the carpet, 
and reciting, in the character of a lively and classi- 
cal hippopotamus, new nonsense-verses to a dozen 
children, amid roars of laughter, — a very undig- 
nified position, certainly, for one of the best Greek 
scholars in P^urope, for a landscape-painter unri- 
valled anywhere, and the author of half a dozen 
learned quartos of travels in Albania, lllyria, Ca- 
labria, and other interesting countries ! But what 
a delight he is personally to the jimiority of Eng- 
land wherever ho is known ! A few years ago he 
was obliged to build a cottage in Ravenna, in 



MY FRIEND- S LIBRARY. 55 

Italy, and live there a portion of the year, in 
order to get time for painting and study ; for when 
he is in London the little people, whom he passion- 
ately loves and cannot live without, run after him, 
as they did after the Pied Piper of Hamelin, to that 
extent he has no leisure for his profession. When 
it is known that the delightful old fellow is on his 
way back to England for the holidays, many of the 
castles and other great residences are on the alert 
with invitations to secure him for as much time as 
he can give them. Generations of children have 
clustered about him in different Christmas sea- 
sons. He dedicates his first '' Book of Nonsense " 
" To the great-grandchildren, grand-nephews, and 
grand-nieces of the thirteenth Earl of Derb}^, the 
greater part of the book having been originally 
composed for their parents." Prime favorite as he 
is among the Argyles and the Devonshires, he has 
an immense clientele among the poor and over- 
worked peasantry of various countries. Having 
been a traveller so many years, and so conversant 
with tlie languages of the Continent, he is just as 
much at home with his fun and his wide goggles 



56 MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

ill the moiiD tain-passes of Switzerland and Spain 
as he is in the great houses of England. Long- 
life to Edward Lear, and continued success to his 
ministry of good-nature about the world ! He 
promised, not long ago, he would come to America 
before he got too old to see our country ; and I 
hope, some day not far distant, to see him, so full 
of genial wit and drollery, cutting up his harmless 
and healthful antics for the amusement of the 
boys and girls of America. One of his sayings, 
at least, deserves immortality : " The world will 
never grow old," he said, ''so long as it has 
little children and flowers in it." 

My friend's library is rich in old-time school- 
books, — " The American Preceptor," " The Co- 
lumbian Orator," and other now obsolete "guides" 
to youth. Here is a " dog's-eared " Walker's Dic- 
tionary that belonged, in 1797, to Daniel Webster, 
with his name carefully printed with a pen on the 
fly-leaf, in a school-boy's hand. That was the year 
the father resolved, poor as he w-as, to send his 
boy to college, and aunuunccd his intention to the 



J/r FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 57 

astonished lad. I know of no paragraph more 
patlictic in any great man's early life than this 
one from a letter written by Webster himself, de- 
scribing the manner his father's resolve was first 
made known to him. " I remember," he writes to 
a friend, " the very hill we were ascending, through 
deep snows (in February, 1797), in a New-England 
sleigh, when my father made his purpose known to 
me. I could not speak. How could he, I thought, 
with so large a family, and in such narrow circum- 
stances, think of incurring so great an expense for 
me '? A warm glow ran all over me, and I laid 
my head on my father's shoulder and wept." 

I am pained to observe in my friend's library 
several broken sets of valuable books. One of her 
copies of Milton, of which author she has some 
ten different editions, has a gap in it, which prob- 
ably will never be filled again. Gone, I fear, for- 
ever, is that fourth volume, so rich in notes all 
radiant in the handwriting of him who sang of 
"Rimini" and "Abou Ben Adheui." Some e3^e, 
perchance, falling upon this page, may yet throw 



58 MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY, 

the needed light upon the whereabouts of this 
missing treasure, lost or stolen, and thus indicate 
a clew to its recovery. But who could have the 
heart to steal a book like that '? What shall we 
think of that insidious, unsuspected marauder 
who came and saw and purloined % What fate 
should compass such a knave, so foul a hooh- 
aneer ? I will not say hanging, for that is a harsh 
aud inelegant word, but I will rather employ Sir 
Thomas Browne's more pungent, high-toned phrase, 
phrase, and call it " 2Jendulous suffocation^' ! 

Apropos of unrestoring borrowers, I have al- 
ways debghted in the hint conveyed by the book- 
plate of Garrick, the great English actor. Little 
David had a keen sense of all his rights of owner- 
ship, and he adopted for his book-motto this pas- 
sage from a French author : *' La premiere chose 
qu'on doit faire quand on a emprnnte un livre, 
c'est de la lire, afin de pouvoir le rcndre plutot " 
{Menagiana, Vol. lY.), — " The first thing one 
ought to do when one has borrowed a book is to 
read it, in order to be able to return it the sooner." 

For wljat is called Shaki^speanan liicraiu/e my 



MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 59 

friend does not care much, preferring the light of 
the luminary himself to the nebulous unsatisfac- 
tory guesses of his commentators. She inclines 
rather to the maximum of thought in Hamlet 
than to the minimum of thought about Hamlet. 
Believing, with the Chorus in Henry the Fifth, 
that a drama is 

" Turning the accoraplisliment of many years 
Into an hour-glass/' 

and that W. S. had the power to do it, she sticks 
to the "hour-glass." She says that reading 
"Cymbeline" through a margin of notes is like 
playing the pianoforte with mittens on ; and she is 
fond of quoting this remark once dropped in her 
hearing by a famous actress : " Shakespeare sets 
his readers' souls on fire wnth flashes of genius ; 
his commentators follow close behind, with buck- 
ets of water putting out the flames ! " And so 
she is content to read the " Plays and Poems " 
themselves, " without note or comment," She 
considers herself a personal and loving debtor to 
Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke, to Horace and 
Mrs. Furness, and some other kindred helps j but 



60 Mr FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

the niiijority of " Sliakcspeare-scliolMrs," so de- 
nominated, she thanks and passes by. Over her 
library door she has hung np an " effigy " of the 
" Prince of Poets," sent from Stratford by E. F. 
the Munificent, and under it she has placed a fac- 
simile coi)y of that warning verse from his tomb 
to the " Good Friend " who might be tempted to 
" digg the dust " and move his bones. 

We were speaking one day, in my friend's li- 
brary, of the ''awful necromancer," the "protago- 
nist on the great arena of poetry," the " glory of 
the human intellect," as he has been called by 
judges of genius; and our hostess related this 
anecdote of an English visitor to whom she was 
lately showing the beautiful mask that conspicu- 
ously graces her library. She said the man (him- 
self a writer of books) gazed at it carelessly for a 
moment, and, walking away, feebly ejaculated, 
" Yes, yes, poor Shakespeare ! he, too, filled a 
drunkard' s grave ! ^' "An admirable conceited fel- 
low that,'' if we may waste those words from the 
"AVinter's Tale" on such a muff! Some one 
present then told us of a pretentious woman wlio 



Mr FRIEND'S LIBRARY. Gl 

was oiicc heard to say, at 's dinner-table, tliat 

she had " never read Shakespeare's Works herself, 
but had always entertained the highest opinion of 
him as a man." This last recital called out 
M. W., who convulsed our little group by relating 
this comical story of venerable Mr. , who be- 
lieves unqualifiedly in Boston as not the hub only, 
but the forward wheels also, of the universe. The 
excellent old gentleman, having confessed to L. G. 
that he had never found time, during his busy life, 
to read the " immortal plays," was advised to do 
so during the winter then approaching. In the 
spring G. called on the estimable citizen, and casu- 
ally asked if he had read any of the plays during 
the season just passed. Yes, he replied, he had 
read them all. '' Do you like them 1 " ventured 
G., feeling his way anxiously to an opinion. ^^Like 
them ! " replied the old man, w4th effusive ardor ; 
'' that is not the word, sir ! They are glorious 
sir ; far beyond my expectation, sir ! There are 
not twenty men in Boston^ sir, ivho could have writ- 
ten those plaijs ! " 

But I am rumbling on too far and too fast for 



02 MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. 

to-day. Here is one more book, however, that I 
must say a word about, as it lies opeu on my 
knee, the gift of Kobbie Burns to a female fnend, 
— his own poems, — the edition which gave him 
" so much real happiness to see in print." Laid 
in this copy of his works is a sad letter, in the 
poet's handwriting, which perhaps has never been 
printed. Addressed to Captain Hamilton, Dum- 
fries, it is in itself a touching record of dear 
Robin's poverty, and cC that. 

" Sir, — It is needless to attempt an apology for my 

remissness to you in money matters ; my conduct is 

beyond all excuse. — Literally, Sir,. I had it not. The 

Distressful state of commerce at this town has this 

year taken from my otherwise scanty income no less 

than £ 20. — That part of my salary depends upon the 

Imposts, and they are no more for one year. I inclose 

you three guineas ; and shall soon settle all with you. 

I shall not mention your goodness to me ; it is beyond 

my power to describe either the feelings of my wounded 

soul at not being able to pay you as I ought ; or the 

grateful respect with which I have the honor to be 

" fSir, Your deeply oljliged humble servant, 

" iluuT. Burns. 
" DuAiFuiEis, Jaiiy. 2i), 17U5." 



MY FRIEND'S LIBRARY. G3 

And so I walk out of my friend's leaf-y para- 
dise this July afternoon, thinking of the bard who 
in all his songs and sorrows made 

*' rustic life and poverty 
Grow beautiful beneath his touch," 

and whose mission it was 

*' To weigh the inborn worth of man." 




A PECULIAR CASE, 



W^ 



A PECULIAR CASE. 




YRUS came well recommended to us (by 
his own fiimily), and, as the name he bore 
has still an interesting sound in Oriental 
history, we decided to emplo}^ him in our cool cot- 
tage " Down East." Our summer hut in those days 
overlooked the sea, and w^as one of the simplest 
resting-places outside that quiet haven which, for 
mortal reasons, we are all destined, sooner or 
later, to occupy. The grounds belonging to our 
rudimentarj^ domicile required only the smallest 
amount of work to keep them in order, so we 
cast about for a young and inexpensive lad in 
the neighborhood who would come every morning 
early and attend to whatever was necessary for 



68 A PECULIAR CASE. 

our comfort and convenience on the premises. 
There was water to bo pumped ; there were shoes 
to be cleaned ; the horse was to be brought np 
from the village stable when wanted for a drive ; 
a few flowers were to be weeded and sprinkled ; 
and various other small ofiices of a kindred na- 
ture required the daily ministration of some com- 
petent person who understood matters appertain- 
ing to a household epitome like ours. And so it 
came to pass that Cyrus, accompanied by a weak- 
minded little dog, presented himself the next 
morning after our arrival, and, standing in the 
breezy entry, with a nondescript fur cap on, pulled 
tightly down over his eyes, demanded information 
as to what he should " ketch holt on fust." Had 
he ever brushed a pair of shoes 1 No ; but if I 
would bring him a pair, he would try his hand 
at it. In about an hour he brought in the shoes, 
and dryly observed he had " spread the whole box 
over 'em." He had put the contents, not only 
on the outside of the shoes, but had pasted them 
tlioroughly on the inside as well ! This was the 
first exhibition of his skill, and amply illustrated 



A PECULIAR CASE. 60 

the fact that he was no respecter of places, what- 
ever he might be of persons. When I told him in 
future I would put my shoes outside my sleeping- 
room door, he drawled out, " They '11 be per- 
fectly safe : nobody '11 tetch 'em ! " 

0, but he was a conspicuous trial in our lot, — 
a source of manifold woe to ns all ! His ability 
to do anything was an esoteric quality, and he 
held his few faculties in a kind of sacred pri- 
vacy. 

" Cyrus is a ^:>e^wZmr case," said his father (a 
squab little man, devoid of hair) ; "but don't be 
hash with him, and he '11 soon learn yer ways," 
— which he never did. 

His multifarious manocuvrings to avoid learning 
our ways astounded the household. He was for- 
ever "jest a-goin'" to do everything, but he accom- 
plished nothing. Shirking was a fine art with the 
rogue ; it w^as akin to meat and drink with him ; 
a kind of constant nutriment conducive to special 
gratification. And so he always postponed em- 
ployment to a more convenient season, which 
season he trusted might never come. 



70 A PECULIAR CASE. 

Honest W. C, discoursing of the Washington 
embezzlements, let foil this explanation of ''irreg- 
ularities " at the "Capitol : " Work 's an old-fash- 
ioned way of gittin' a livin' ; it tires folks, and 
they don't Uke it." 

Cyrus exemplified the forceful truth of a state- 
ment like this. Punctuality to duty in any form 
met with his sternest exprobation. He was what 
is called in the country " a growin' boy," and 
he grew to be a thorn in our side, a pest in our 
path, a cloud in our landscape. In brief, he 
proved the only serious trial in our cottage life 
by the sea, our only real skeleton, indoors or out. 

Words are colorless to depict the inadecpmcy of 
Cyrus to the situation we had called him to fill. 
A dark lantern without a candle would have served 
us quite as well, for the boy shed no light any- 
where, and handled nothing fitly. He was a crea- 
ture of misinformation on every topic he ought to 
have been conversant wnth. He was constantly 
getting himself poisoned with ivy, the leaf of 
which he mistook for something else, and the 
consequent obfuscation of his countenance added 



A PECULIAR CASE. 71 

nothing to his personal attractions. He had a 
natural aversion to self-agency, so far as he was 
concerned. He did not know things by halves, 
or quarters even. He had languid hands, and 
languider legs. His figure was long and fuzzy, 
and when he walked, swung itself to and fro like 
a broken bulrush. All the possibilities of sloth 
were apparent in his feet. He limped and crept 
rather than walked. His whole being seemed 
parboiled, and his joints unsettled. He was an 
emblem of incompleteness, a memento of hopeless 
dearth, both moral and physical ; celerity was 
extinct in him. He had a gone-out appearance, 
as of one dug up from the ashes of some Yankee 
Herculaneum ; and, as a family, we felt a kind of 
mortification at belonging to the same race with 
such a remnant, such a bundle of half intuitions. 
Coleridge describes him when he speaks of "a 
monument of imbecility and blank endeavor," for 
the boy heard nothing, and saw nothing, from 
sheer and stubborn nnuse of his faculties. He 
was unobservant as a "blind alley," whatever that 
ophthalmic curiosity may be ; and he never picked 



A PECULIAR CASE. 



up anything, for he was uot cognizant of matter 
like the majority of the liuman race. 

Of positive truth, he was born insolvent. He 
was strong in partial falsehoods, and preferred the 
serpentine to a direct course on every occasion ; 
but he had no falterings in deception. He pre- 
ferred to sidle up to a lie rather than present it 
squarely; but there was no imperfection in the 
article itself when he had reached it. Sometimes, 
but not often, his fabrications were too crude to 
escape detection. Of this nature was his frequent 
apology for absences on account of the necessity 
of " attending his grandmother's funeral." At the 
end of the season, 1 made out from my records 
that Cyrus had been called upon to mourn the 
loss of nine extinct grandmothers in three mouths ; 
but as his moral tegument was impervious to pro- 
testation, I never charged upon him, face to face, 
his pretended unnatural supply of female relations. 
(Ovid alludes to Bacchus as "twice born," — bis 
geniti, — but all such natal exaggerations are 
abhorrent to credulity.) 

There are those whose minds are always ou 



A PECULIAR CAiiK. 73 



the wrong side of any subject presented to them. 
Of such was the boy Cyrus in an eminent de- 
gree, for his mind was ever in that wandering 
state which precludes the possibihty of lodging 
an idea within an acre or two of its blundering 
precincts. He dwelt in an atmosphere beclouded 
with carelessness, and so he comprehended every- 
thing in an opposite light from the true one. 
He paused when he should have gone on, and 
moved rapidly (for him) when he should have 
ceased motion. 

His manners were preposterous in their illimit- 
able absurdity. When I begged him one day 
to step forward quickly and hold a friend's horse 
that was restive at the door, he leisurely ob- 
served " he was not a-goin' to spring for any- 
body ! " (Cyrus on a spring would have been a 
sight worth seeing.) 

Being in the habit of bursting into my private 
room to ask irrelevant questions, at all hours, 
without the formality of knocking, I hinted 
mildly to him that it was the custom to knock 
before entering another's apartment. He stared 



74 A PECULIAR CASE. 

at my suggested act of propriety for a moment, 
and then blurted out the remark that for his 
part he did not "see wot good that would do, 
but he would give a thump next time." Accord- 
ingly when he had occasion to come again to my 
door, he pounded vigorously on it with the heel 
of his heavy boot. 

"Who's there?" I inquired. 

"Cyrus J. Muchmore ! " he shouted in a voice 
that set all the crockery dancing on the adja- 
cent shelves, and " woke the neighboring cliffs 
around." 

Laziness was his foible. He had that unpleas- 
ant quality in its supreme condition. The throne 
of indolence was vacant on our coast until Cyrus 
lolled forward and fell into it. 

He was own brother to the snail, and no rela- 
tion whatever to the ant. Even his cautious 
father, discoursing of him one day, acknowledged 
that "the boy was rather chicken-hearted about 
work." Unaided locomotion was distasteful to 
him. If sent on an errand to the next cottage, 
he waited patiently for an opportunity to trans- 



A PECULIAR CASE. 75 

fer himself bodily into the tail-end of somebody's 
passing wagon, considering it better to be thus 
assisted along than to assume the responsibility 
of moving forward on his own legs. He spared 
himself all the fatigue possible to mortality, and 
overcame labor by constantly lying in wait for "a 
lift," as he called it. He was the only seaside 
stripling I ever met who eschewed fishing. Most 
boys are devotees of the rod and line, but Cyrus 
Avas an exception. The necessary anterior search 
for bait was too much for his inertia. Clam and 
worm might lie forever undisturbed, so far as he 
was concerned. He must have slowly descended 
from that notorious son of laziness celebrated by 
old Barton, who said he enjoyed fishing until the 
fish began to bite ; then he gave it up, as he 
could not endure the fatigue of drawing nj) the 
line and rebaiting the hook. 

His dilatory habit rose sometimes fo the au- 
dacity of genius. He could consume more hours in 
going a mile to the village post-office and return- 
ing with the mail than one would credit, unless 
his gait came under personal observation. We 



70 A PECULIAR CASE. 

took a kind of exasperated delight as we used to 
watch him trailing along the ground, and we felt 
a fresh wonder every day at liis power of slaw pro- 
cedure. It seemed a gift, an endowment, now for 
the first time vouchsafed to mortal inertness. The 
caterpillar would have been too rapid for him ; he 
would lose in a race with that dull groundling. He 
seemed to be counting myriads of something in 
the road. When he cautiously and laboriously 
lifted up one foot, it seemed an eternity before the 
other followed it. He would frequently drop 
asleep in getting over a stone-wall, and his recum- 
bent figure was imprinted under all the trees by 
the roadside. He hated action, except at meals. 
There he astonished the cook, who complained 
after his advent into our kitchen that " one pair 
of hands could n't provide enough for such a com- 
morunk," and advised us to have him " exam- 
ined ! " She accused him of " always a-georging 
of hisself." She averred that when he was help- 
ing her shell peas he ate up all but the pods dur- 
ing the operation ; and she dechired tliat if slic 
took her eyes off him as he moved througli the 



A PECULIAR CASE. 77 

pantry, he devoured as he went, to use her own 
words, " hke an army of locusses." 

He never knew what o'clock it was, but con- 
stantly asked everybody he met for " the time 
o' day." When informed, and the hour announced 
did not approximate dinner-time, he became dis- 
couraged and low-spirited, but revived at the sight 
of a chance apple or cucumber lying on the groin d 
near by. I have seen him blossom into slow 
activity when unexpected food has been offered to 
him " between meals." His stomach rose to any 
occasion, and coped with all emergencies. We 
used to try him with a heavy slice of beef and mus- 
tard at ten o'clock in the morning, and he settled 
upon it at once wdth stolid avidity, cobra-fashion. 
He yearned for family picnics where tiiere was no 
walking to be done, where the viands were ample, 
and nobody had occasion to bear along the bas- 
kets. He was constitutionally susceptible of double 
meals. His favorite localities could always be 
recognized by the debris of comestibles strewn 
around. Rinds of w^ater-melon, egg-shells, and 
apple-cores betrayed his whereabouts. When off 



78 A PECULIAR CASE. 

duty at the kitchen-table he was ever devouring 
something from out a huge pocket which adorned 
his trousers on the right side, bulging it out like 
a wen. The protuberance became so enormous 
that one day I felt constrained to ask him if he 
had a cannon-ball in his thigh. No, it was only 
a couple of turnips he w^as " a-goin' to eat bum- 
by." Every edible thing that grew was tributary 
to him. His taste was catholic. He fed largely 
and promiscuously. He was matchless in his dep- 
redations on cooked or uncooked. He was, in 
short, the lineal descendant of Pliny's "Annihila- 
tor," the great food destroyer of antiquity ! 

Born in the country, he was ignorant as a sign- 
post of what came out of the soil. When set to 
work in the garden he pulled up ever^'thing but the 
weeds. He would mistake wormwood for parslej', 
and mustard for mint. Interrogatories disquieted 
him. When asked a question -about what should 
have concerned him most, his unblushing reply 
was, "Don't know !" 

He had adroitness in delegating jobs about the 
place to unsuspecting lads of his acquaintance that 



A PECULIAR CASE. 79 

wjis both amusing and exasperating. He would 
saunter along to the cottage in the morning, bring- 
ing with him two or three shabby -looking varlets 
of his own age, or a little younger, perhaps, and 
hide them away behind the rocks until their ser- 
vices might be required. At the proper time he 
would carry out the new hoe, or the new-fangled 
rake, to show them. Then he would gradually 
toll the boys up to some gap in the avenue that 
needed filling, or allure them to a lot of hay that 
must be gathered for the barn. He, iiiean while, 
would lie on the ground in a state of flat con- 
tentment, making the most of himself, and regard- 
ing the boys with supine satisfaction as they 
accomplished the task he ought himself to be 
engaged in. Coming upon him unexpectedly once 
while thus disporting his lazy length, I asked for 
an explanation of his conduct. He replied that 
he " was obleeged to lay daown on accaount of a 
jumpin' tewth-ache that bed jess sot in." His 
subterfuges were endless and invincible. They 
revolved about him in a perpetual cycle, ready for 
use at any moment, and so he was never caught 



80 A PECULIAR CASE. 

disfurnished with an excuse. Evasion was his 
armature, quiddity his defence. To upbraid him 
was a loss of time and patience. It would be a 
shrewd master indeed who could circumvent him ! 
Choate was not more wary, or Webster more pro- 
found, than Cyrus when he was brought to bay. 

He was full of illogical intrepidities. He 
eluded reproof with a conversational dexterity 
beyond the ordinary bent and level of his brain. 
He changed the current of discourse at will. 
When remonstrating with him one day on his 
short-comings and long-goings, he interrupted 
the strain of remark by inquiring if I had 
" heered that 'Siah Jones's boss got cast t' other 
night, and took four men to drag him aout by 
the tail." On another occasion he cut short my 
admonition, just as the homily was cidminating, 
by asking mo if I " knowed that Abel Baker 
wore false teeth in his maouth, and sometimes 
put 'em in upside-daown, cos he did n't mider- 
stand 'em." In the middle of a colloquy with 
him one morning on his unpunctual appearance 
at the cottage, he threw me completely off the 



A PECULIAR CASE. 81 



track by casually "wondering" if I had "ever 
run acrost tlie sca-sarpunt in my travels ! " Ha- 
ranguing him at the close of a day when he had 
neglected every duty, he broke the force of my 
censure by demanding if I was " for or agin 
capital punishment." He liabitually glided away 
from a subject that happened to set against 
him, just as Tennyson's snake "slipped under 
a spray ! " 

Poor Cyrus ! I have not even veiled his in- 
significant and unmusical name, for he is no 
longer extant in a world he did nothing to ben- 
efit or adorn. Oblivion called for him years ago. 
He was carried off in the season of green apples, 
being unable to restrain his reckless passion for 
unripe fruit. As I strew this handful of pop- 
pies over his unconscious eyelids, I remember 
with a smile of gratitude the daily fun his 
drowsy presence afforded to at least one mem- 
ber of that little household by the sea ; and 
pondering how small an interest he ever took 
in the industries of life, I confidently apply to 
his "peculiar case" the well-known assertion in 



82 A PECULIAR CASE. 

a celebrated monody, — " Little he '11 reck if 
they let him sleep on ! " Vex not his ghost ! 
Light lie the turf on his inactive elbows, for 
the}^ would be troubled, even now, if under press- 
ure of any kind. It cannot be seriously said 
of him that he "rests from his labors," poor 
lad, for his frequent slumber was always more 
natural than his infrequent toil, and he knew 
how to take much ease during his brief sojourn 
in til is work-a-day world. No " hoary-headed 
swain" Down East can ever make this passing 
observation touching the habits of our defunct 
acquaintance : — 

''Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn 
Brushing with liasty steps the dews away 
To meet the snn upon the upland lawn." 

But many of us still remember how often — 

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech 

That wreathes its old, fantastic roots so high, 
His listless length at noontide would he stretch, 
And pore upon the brook that babbles by." 



rAMILIAE LETTER TO HOUSE-BEEAKEES. 



^==r^^ 



FAMILIAR LETTER TO HOUSE-BREAKERS. 




ENTLEMEN, — Your daring eccentrici- 
ties have often moved me to address you ; 
but your recent gambols on my own 
premises compel immediate attention to the subject. 
The last time some of your fraternity unexpectedly 
called at my residence several incidents occurred 
which were not at all to your credit as honest and 
true men. Some of them, as the painters say, 
were entirely "out of drawing." Pardon me if I 
remind you in this public manner of the well-ven- 
tilated, proverbial reference to that fine sense of 
honor which is said to exist even among individ- 
uals of your exceptional calling. In " breaking 
and entering," as the law succinctlv denominates 



86 FAMTLTAR LETTER TO HOUSE-BREAKERS. 

one of the customs of your craft, you did not, on 
the occasion referred to (again I crave forgiveness 
for the candid strain of my complaint), so care- 
fully abstain from injuring my unfortunate posses- 
sions as you might have done. It has never been 
the habit of the confiding household to which I 
belong to lock either its doors or its drawers, but 
to save all unnecessary trouble by leaving every- 
thing we own most easy of access and quite free 
to the handling of your brotherhood, should any 
members of it chance to drop in upon us ; yet, 
notwithstanding our forethought in your behalf, 
our studied solicitude for your comfort and con- 
venience, you abstracted all the keys thus left to 
your mercy and utterly disregarded our natural 
claims in the matter. Note for one moment, gen- 
tlemen, what trouble you have caused us by this 
oversight of propriety. Every instrument you 
have thus purloined and appropriated to other 
entrances must be replaced by us; and, as the 
locks on most of the doors thus defrauded are 
patent ones and not easily fitted by an ordinary 
locksmith, experts at a distance must be sent for 



FAMILIAR LETTER TO HOUSE-BREAKERS. 87 

and brought, with considerable expense, into thesie 
gaping and unprotected apartments. Again, it is 
not exactly according to the Commandments for 
an unknown number of persons to come by night 
into a dwelling-house of which they do not " hold 
the title-deed," wearing boots that leave indelible 
nail-marks on the tops of other people's pianos 
and that soil unworn carpets and stairs with a 
compound of tar and mud, whose consistence it is 
beyond the efforts of time and chemistry to re- 
move. Spilling oil or other disagreeable fluid by 
the quart, or even by the pint, on couches and 
table-covers and leaving it supernatent where fine 
proof engravings have been laid is not a high-toned 
act, gentlemen, and ought not to be sanctioned by 
your guild. I am sorry to notice, also, a morbid 
tendency in your profession, of late, to mutilate 
paintings hawjhig on the inoffensive walls; and 
the inhuman wish will not be kept down that 
some of you could be compelled to change places 
with them, — for a few hours, at least. There 
seems, too, a growing desire among you to molest 
the marble adornments, 

'' Whose white hivestuients figure innocence," 



88 FAMILIAR LETTER TO HOUSE-BREAKERS. 

in a house. Consider for a moment, gentlemen, 
what it must be for a proprietor to go down stairs 
in the mornmg and find his own bust transmuted 
from a " speaking likeness " into an object fit only 
for the ash-barrel ! Think of his domestic part- 
ner's feelings when she descends into the drawing- 
room, after your midnight visit, and beholds the 
wreck you have left behind ! Gentlemen, could 
you have been present on a certain morning of 
last week, you would have witnessed a scene of 
woe to flutter in unwonted manner the most dis- 
honest heart, albeit, you are, I believe, somewhat 
given to the melting mood. (The silver tea-set 
you conveyed away from us during your late so- 
journ was a wedding-gift, most chastely wrought. 
Where is it now and what rank furnace saw its 
molten pangs ?) I will not here enumerate all 

" The parcels and particulars of our grief " ; 
but what an incommunicative heap you left us 
of what was once the semblance of a living and 
immortal art ! There lay our " Young Augustus," 
quite chapfallen ; our " Clytie," headless in the 
flower of youth ; our " Dying Gladiator," more 



FAMILIAR LETTER TO HOUSE-BREAKERS. 89 

than dead and turned to clay ; our skyey-pointing 
" Mercury," overthrown and void. Bending over 
her vanished treasures (spoils of many and many 
a happy year), the tearful owner stood, a monu- 
ment of sorrow paralyzed by grief, among her 
broken idols. Really, gentlemen, it did seem a 
wholesale and superfluous destruction of beautiful 
things (could not one suffice 1) ; but perhaps you 
are of Captain Swosser's opinion, that " if you 
make pitch hot you cannot make it too hot." 
(Pardon this levity, gentlemen, on a theme so 
serious ; but pitch is always suggestive.) 

I did not hear your ingress on that fatal night 
which brought us all our woe, for I am torpid as 
a watchman after twelve o'clock ; but if I had 
encountered you on my premises during your call 
I should have made a special revolving plea for 
the safety of those particular household gods. 
Excuse my bluntness, gentlemen ; but your icono- 
clastic feats are unpraiseworthy and will not bear 
repetition. Such rites are unholy in the extreme, 
and are only practised by bunglers in your voca- 
tion. Performances like those are crude and can- 



90 FAMILIAR LETTER TO HOUSE-BREAKERS. 



not come to good. No true artist will ever stoop 
so low. 

I linger over our wrongs because they are so 
great. You have inflicted upon this family a 
household cruelty, and, to employ the pomp of 
Shakesperean phrase, have made us 

" Feel tlie bruises of the day before. 
And suffer the condition of the times 
To lay a heavy and unequal hand 
Upon our honors." 

We are, indeed, wounded where we least expected 
blows; and we cannot, therefore, as some of our 
modern judges and juries do, regard you in the 
light of honest and civil citizens. I am aware 
that current sympathy, in and out of the courts, 
now runs in favor of protecting the criminal ; but 
the amusements you pursue, though possibly lucra- 
tive, are dangerous. Your pastime is open to sus- 
picion, at least. There are individuals here and 
there, even in this year of the Republic, who doubt 
if a thief ought to be habitually classed with hon- 
est men. " Flat burglary " has in some quarters 
become prejudicial to reputations. 



FAMILIAR LETTER TO HOUSE-BREAKERS. 91 

Not many years ago, in England, — a country, 
I am told, from which many of your stock have 
emigrated to this one, — they instituted a kind of 
gymnastic exercise specially adapted for your per- 
manent reform. "Dancing on nothing" I think 
they called the saltatory position where sentence 
was executed in those days. A friend of mine 
attended several trials at the Old Bailey in 1827, 
and on one occasion saw three able-bodied and 
accomplished gentlemen of your persuasion con- 
demned to death for forgery and house-breaking; 
and there was no pardon following close upon the 
decision of that court. They gave no quarter then 
to Worshipfid Knights of the False Keys. There 
was no divergence of opinion touching the char- 
acter of your Order in those days, gentlemen. 

Yours is not a liberal profession ; consequently, 
yonr exceptional career is limited. A great artist 
in your line is now passing the remainder of his 
life (when not engaged in lapidarian dissections) 
in the contemplation of a very small, unfurnished 
apartment, adorned with no wood-work and much 
rectangular iron. He possessed rare social quali- 



92 FAMILIAR LETTER TO HOUSE-BREAKERS. 

ties and was friendly to the worst pursuits of man. 
Constabulary restraint grew fluid at his touch. 
From his youth up he could pick a lock with the 
best of his tribe, and shop-lifting was his favorite 
faith. His special gift, perhaps, lay in crawling 
through apertures where an infant's body would 
have been tightly wedged. The secret skill with 
which he transferred the well-guarded property of 
others into his own keeping seemed a new-born 
power, coming into the world only at his particular 
advent. He was the w^onder of his time and the 
envy of his clan. But pause now before his her- 
mit cell and gaze upon his shaven head. Your 
own fair locks, gentlemen, may one day come to 
to be picked like his. He once had curls abun- 
dant as your own. Think of your macassared 
crowns diminished to that ignoble condition ! Un- 
der the circumstances, gentlemen, is it obtrusive 
in me to warn you and call your attention loudly 
to this example of capillary unattraction before 
you ] You have had among you, no doubt, many 
a hair-hreadth escape ; but yonder dismantled 
dome of thought, once thatched with comely locks, 



FAMILIAR LETTER TO HOUSE-BREAKERS. 93 

preaches a lesson to you not to be liglitly set aside. 
Ymcr turn in the barber-shop of fate, when you, 
too, will be invited to take the inexorable chair, is 
sure to come. The avenging shears are waiting to 
crop you also. " Be wise to-day ; 't is madness to 
defer," cries Dr. Young, in his suggestive " Night 
Thoughts," a book written for after-dark reflection, 
— the very time when your unhallowed business 
begins. Think, gentlemen, how party-colored trou- 
sers would become such nimble legs as yours ! 
Would iron bracelets ornament a pair of wrists in 
close proximity to taper fingers such as you ex- 
hibit, — fingers educated, I am mformed, by adepts 
in reducing size to especial emergencies 1 Gentle- 
men, I will pursue no further a course of thought 
distasteful perhaps to sensitive spirits and unwel- 
come to household artists like yourselves. I will 
venture the hope, however, that you will, in all 
future exploits on my own premises, do me the 
particular favor to abstain from wanton acts of 
cruelty to " lifeless and inanimate clay " (to say 
nothing of marble), — acts 

" That make such waste in brief mortality." 



94 FAMILIAR LETTER TO HOUSE-BREAKERS. 

Ill closing this epistle, let me remind your brother- 
hood of an observation written years ago by a 
brilliant and thoughtful French woman, when 
describing a certain notorious and infamous char- 
acter who figured a long time since in high Pa- 
risian circles : " There are two little inconvenien- 
ces," said she, "which make it difficult for any one 
to undertake his funeral oration, — namely, his life 
and his death ! " This remark is equally valuable 
to those of us who move in a lower stratum of 
society than the archbishop whom Madame was 
depicting. Take care, gentlemen with fractured 
reputations, devourers of widows' houses, and 
breakers and enterers generally, or your own dark 
records, like that of the great prelate's, may de- 
prive you also of those obsequies which he for- 
feited by the habitual sequestration of other 
people's property and the application of it to his 
own unbridled and selfish uses. 

Gentlemen, I have no reluctance now in bidding 

you farewell, and, in doing so, I sincerely wish it 

may erelong be said of all your tribe individually, 

what Lucullus in the play observes of Timoii : — 

"Every man lias liis I'uult, aud Iloiiedy is his." 



OUE VILLAGE DOGMATIST. 



vi;p<>=^ 



OUR VILLAGE DOGMATIST. 




F " to bo wise wore to be obstinate, " Un- 
derbill bas lately lost its incarnation of 
wisdom. A few months ago we followed 
to his corner-lot in the windy graveyard all that 
was mortal (and there was considerable of it) of 
"old Cap'n Barker Brine," as he was familiarly 
called by man, woman, and child in our little com- 
munity. Born with protruded lips and elevated 
eyebrows, he was for many j-ears our village 
doubter, oracle, and critic, — our tyrannical master 
of opinion in all public and private matters; and 
even now the prelude to any wise commonplace is, 
" Old Caphi Brine used to say.''' He is already a 
classic in Underbill, and will be cpjoted for cen- 



98 OUR VILLAGE DOGMATIST. 

turics to come, no doubt. " Cap^n Barker Brine 
said so'^ will always be familiar in the common 
mouth, and will settle many a disputed point — 
theological, political, and domestic — for genera- 
tions yet to advance and take possession of these 
quaint streets and antique dwellings. What he 
said was ordinary, unoriginal, and absurdly illogi- 
cal, but it was the ivaf/ he said it that produced 
an effect. He had " great command of language," 
but the commodity was good for nothing after it 
had been commanded. He evinced a constitu- 
tional determination to verbiage unsurpassed in 
the records of inanity, and only those wdio knew 
him could possibly appreciate his affluence of rig- 
marole. He was a colloquial inebriate, constantly 
tumbling about in a kind of verbal delirium tre- 
mens. For instance, I remember one thick, foggy 
day he rolled into the post-office, where we were 
all assembled to wait for the morning mail ; and, 
on being appealed to for an explanation of the 
cause which brings about the heavy mists wdiich 
so frequently envelop us at Underhill, he leaned 
thoughtfully on his walking-stick and thus deliv- 



OUR VILLAGE DOGMATIST. 99 

ered himself, in a swelling, majestic tone, that 
implied long and mysterious study over the phe- 
nomenon : " When the AtmospJiere and Hermisphere 
comes together, it causes the earth to sweat, and thereby 
produces a fog ! " The learned manner in which 
the Cap'n pronounced these idiotic words estab- 
lished conviction in the minds of nearly all the 
listeners present. 

The Cap'n was a bulky person, and he needed 
to be so, for only an extra-sized individual could 
have carried around such " ponderous syllables " as 
he encircled. 

Susan G., who gladdens our summer cliffs with 
her presence, and whose sense of humor is one of 
her prominent delightful qualities, hoards up ques- 
tions all winter to stagger the Cap'n with during 
July and August. She says she has never yet 
been put off sans answer, no matter how absurd 
the interrogation. The Cap'n cannot afford to 
appear unknowing in his native Underbill, before 
anybody. Susan, encountering him one day at 
the little-of-every thing shop, boldly marched up to 
the chair he was sitting in, surrounded by his ad- 



100 OUR VILLAGE DOGMATIST. 



miring townsmen, and inquired, " Is there any dif- 
ference, Captain, between a radical and a barnacle]" 

" It '5 the same specie, — the same specie^'* loftily 
rejoined the j^hilosopher, with a half-negligent, 
self-satisfied air, waving off Susan to a more re- 
moved corner of the shop. S. says there was a 
general consciousness of superiority in the tone in 
which the Cap'n said this, that no attempted 
imitation could possibly delineate. It was the 
meridian triumph of small vanity and ignorant 
readiness, which only the Cap'n's experience knew 
how to combine. S. declares it was inherent, con- 
summate genius I 

The blank uniformity of opinion in our small 
community was due entirely to the influence of 
this oracular, seaworthy old inhabitant, full as 
he was of misinformation and conceit. He had 
picked up, in his early wanderings about the 
world, a collection of high-sounding phrases, which 
he never omitted to employ when the time came, 
and they never failed to produce an effect. The 
sound of a word was more to him than the sense it 
conveyed. He found twenty different uses for the 



OUR VILLAGE DOGMATIST. 101 

same expression. He had a natural disrelish for 
simplicity, and craved the show of things. When 
a poor, half-crazed fellow, in a fit of despondency, 
jumped into the water, and was taken out before 
he had time to drown, the Cap'n, in telling the 
story, said the man had " committed suicide tem- 
porarilyy Observing some thin boards under his 
arm as he was proceeding homeward to dinner, I 
asked him what they were for, and he informed 
me they were for '^piazzary purposes." Showing 
him an ingenious contrivance for washing clothes, 
which regulated itself, he assumed an artistic ex- 
pression, and said, " Yes, sir, I preceive it is a self- 
digesting machine." He affected to be what he 
called " a studier of complaints, ^^ and he made fre- 
quent allusions to a " suggestion of the brain," 
and "longevity of the spinal marrow," whatever 
these diseases might be. He spoke disparagingly 
of people who kept a " revenue of servants," and 
a fresh, healthy breeze from the north he called 
an ^^ embracing air." For the clergy generally he 
had just contempt, and always spoke of them as 
" ignorameans.^^ One of his favorite phrases, " the 



102 OUR VILLAGE DOGMATIST. 

line of demarcation^' he employed every day of his 
Hfe, and it was amusing to note how he pressed 
it into conversation even on the most inopportune 
occasions. You could not be long in his company 
without culling the information that he had seen 
"the great Cooper play Richard the King"; that 
he had " shaken hands with Old Hickory " (Gen- 
eral Jackson) ; that he had " held an argument 
once with a bishop," whom he complimentarily 
described as "a high-toned, pompous gentlemen " ; 
and that he had frequently sailed "among the 
Spanish islands." " When I was master of the 
old Numy" (Numa Pompilius'?) prefaced many of 
his impossible adventures; and he constantly re- 
ferred to a period when he saw a mermaid "off 
the coast of Gibberalter." " What the Frenchman 
calls Kick-shoes'^ (quelque-chose) was an every-day 
phrase with him. ^' As the Sweden-virgins (Swe- 
denborgians) believe,''' was another. He quoted 
frequently from " the Pitomy," whatever that 
might be ; probably it was the Epitome of some- 
thing or other, — perhaps an old-time nautical 
volume. One of his favorite axioms was this : 



OUR VILLAGE DOGMATIST. 103 

" When a man understands navigation he under- 
stands everything " ; and there was no one in 
Underhill to dispute the assertion. 

The Cap'n's admiration for the First Napo- 
leon was profusely vociferous whenever occasion 
offered. Indeed, his worship extended to all the 
Bonaparte family, and he spoke as familiarly of 
Joseph and Jerome as of his own brethren of the 
sea. But, instead of declaring himself, as he 
meant no doubt to do, a Napoleonist, he always 
made the mistake of asserting that he was a 
"stanch Neapolitan,'' having early in life, no 
doubt, got the impression that was the word 
most expressive of his homage for the Napoleon 
dynasty. 

He would read steadily by the hour in an anti- 
quated dictionary called " Perry's Royal Stand- 
ard " ; but Plutarch and Pope, he said, engaged 
his attention more constantly than all other au- 
thors. Somehow he had got a confused idea that 
they were contemporary writers. 

This was the person who dominated Underhill, 
proving conclusively that a man is apt to be esti- 



104 OUR VILLAGE DOGMATIST. 

mated everywhere according as he estimates him- 
self. We all lived under the sway of his critical 
faculty, and accepted his dictum from mere force 
of habit. Nobody cared to praise or find fault 
with the paint on a new house, the style of a new 
barn, the color of a new cow, the gait of a new 
horse, the sermons of a new minister, until the 
Cap'n had " pronounced upon them." I remember 
he spoiled all the chances of settling an excellent 
young clergyman in our parish by saying of the 
new candidate, that ^^his thoughts ivas 2^oor, and his 
manners in the pulpit was prepostuousP Some few 
of the parishioners attempted a dissent from this 
judgment, but it availed nothing. " Old Cap'n 
Brine don't like him " settled the matter, but not 
the minister. 

The Cap'n's wife had died in middle life, and we 
were informed by the only old lady in the parish 
who dared to speak disparagingly of the village 
oracle, that " Maria Brine was harnsum as a picter 
when she was young," but that she was worn out 
by her husband's contempt for every word she ut- 
tered in his presence, — "scorched by his disdain." 



OUR VILLAGE DOGMATIST. 105 

If the meek woman happened to make a remark 
on any subject nnder consideration, he would 
fiercely demand how she came to know anything 
about it ! "I believe to my soul," said our inform- 
ant, " he fairly mortified that poor creetur into her 
grave long before her time ! " 

Our first encounter with the Cap'n happened in 
this wise. When we first went to look for summer 
lodgings in Underbill, the postmaster referred us to 
" Cap'n Barker Brine down by the p'int, who some- 
times took folks to board as an accommodation." 
Steering coastwise, according to direction, we found 
a stout, cranberry-colored personage mending some 
old lobster-nets that were spread out on the little 
green lawn between the rocks at the back of his 
weather-beaten house. We opened the garden- 
gate and saluted the master on his own premises ; 
but he was arrogantly oblivious, or pretended to 
be, that two strangers had entered on his domain. 

" Is Captain Brine at home 1 " we inquired. 

" He is," deliberately responded the proud pro- 
prietor. 

'' Can we see him ] " one of us ventured to ask. 



106 OUR VILLAGE DOGMATIST. 

"You can," responded the retired mariner, who 
still went on, like a determined old spider, labori- 
ously mending his nets. 

Coming nearer to the point, w^e asked if he were 
Captain Brine. 

" I awi," he replied ; and taking from his jacket- 
pocket a half-decayed clay pipe, proceeded to look 
down the bowl as if the vista were a mile or two 
long, assuming all the while the appearance of a 
philosopher "tracking Suggestion to her inmost 
cell." 

" Vse have come to look for board this summer, 
Captain, and we 've taken the liberty to inquire 
here." 

"Nobody benders ye," jerked out the net- 
mender. 

" Is there good fishing off these rocks. Cap- 
tain?" 

" 'Cordin' to what you call good ! " he replied. 

" Professor Agassi z says this is a capital place 
for perch," we ventured to remark. 

"Old Gashus don't know ei-t^ry thing," responded 
the Cap'n. 



OUR VILLAGE DOGMATIST. 107 

" But he knows a great deal about fishes, having 
made them a special study," we rejoined. 

" I can learn Gashns and all the rest of 'em 
their A B C ! " roared the Cap'n, with an exple- 
tive at the end of his defiant remark. 

Not caring to dispute with the irate old mariner 
as to the relative piscatory knowledge of the great 
professor and himself, we brought round the con- 
versation to its starting-point, and begged to know 
if he could " accommodate " us for two months in 
his cottage. The old man gave a contemptuous 
glance from under his shaggy gray brows, and thus 
delivered himself: "In the fust place, I'm not 
acquainted with ye. In the second place, you 're 
too set in your notions for me. In the third 
place, we don't take boarders no more." 

Some time after this encounter we came to 
know the Cap'n intimately, and were frequently 
honored with invitations to fish with him. Well 
might a plain, unlettered farmer, who feared we 
might underrate the Cap'n's powers, observe in 
our hearing with considerable emphasis, "Cap'n 
Barker Brine can handle logic just as well as I can 



108 OUR VILLAGE DOGMATIST, 

handle a hoe ! " The logic was i^oor enough, to be 
sure, but 0, the manner of it, the handUng, — 
therein consisted its greatness? He measured 
everything by the shadow of his own paucity of 
intellect, mistaking himself all the while for a 
mental giant. His ideas had been deranged by the 
village flattery of attention to his opinions, until 
he came to consider his own feeble and foolish 
judgments a necessity for the welfixre of mankind. 
Having no humility to begin wdth, vanity, nur- 
tured in a weak community, soon grafted itself on 
such a nature, and self-conceit blossomed and 
flourished accordingly. His godship among the 
natives became a fact which he never once ques- 
tioned. 

It is said that shortly before the Cap'n passed 
away, he turned to an old neighbor who was watch- 
ing at his bedside, and with a kind of short-breath 
ostentation gave this his last order : " Ira Dock- 
um! let the line of demarcation 2:)roceed from this end 
of the house ! " He was evidently babbling of his 
funeral cortege, and the closing passage in " Enoch 
ArJen " came to my mind, as the dwellers in 



OUR VILLAGE DOGMATIST. 109 

Underhill solemnly formed and marched in their 
Sunday garments at the obsequies of Captain 
Brine : — 

" And when they buried him the little port 
Had seldom seen a costlier funeral." 

Truly says Sir Thomas Browne, " Man is a no- 
ble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the 
grave ! " 




A WATCH THAT "WANTED CLEANING.' 



A WATCH THAT "WANTED CLEANmG." 




THINK I never saw a person who 
needed renewal of garments in a more 
prononnced degree than the gannt in- 
dividual I encountered a few weeks ago in Omaha. 
We met casually on the upland overlooking Coun- 
cil Bluffs, whither I had gone for a morning walk 
in that city of newness and hospitality. The man 
was sitting on the stump of a recently beheaded 
tree, regarding a watch, which he now and then 
held up in a kind of hopeless manner, and listened 
to for a sign of life from its inner apartments. 
When he saw me approaching he rose up and 
asked for " the time o' day." As I had only 
" Boston time," and that was of no use so far " out 



114 A WATCH THAT ''WANTED CLEANING. 



West," he sighed, again shook the unresponsive 
article in liis hand, and sj^oke as follows : — 
" This 'ere watch, stranger, 's a puzzler. Some 
thing 's the matter w^ith 'er. I 've seen a good-die 
of trouble in my day, but nothin' at all like this 
afore. In my younger days I once had a personal 
difficulty with a bear, but that was fun compared 
to this affliction." 

Noticing a settled grief on the poor fellow's 
soiled and sunken countenance, I sat down beside 
him on the ample resting-place he had chosen, and 
made inquiry as to the cause of his untimely sorrow. 
After a brief pause he thus unburdened himself: — 
" Stranger, if you was in the watch line, we 'd have 
nothing to do with one another ; but as you ain't, 
I don't mind givin' jow 'er histor}^, which you '11 
allow^ is somewhat discouragin'. I bought 'er two 
months ago in ^S'/i^-cargo for sixteen dollars down 
and five dollars in poultry. I had 'er of a fine- 
lookin' man who keeps jewillry on the sidewalk 
down by the Palmer House. He was a perfect 
gentleman in appearance, wore studs himself, nnd 
his conversation was high-toned. He said he was a 



A WATCH THAT ''WANTED CLEANING:' 115 

member in reg'lar standin' of more 'n fifty churches 
in various parts of the United States where he 
traded. He said he set his hfe by the watch, but 
would part with 'er if he was shore the man he 
sold 'er to was a moral man, and would take good 
care of 'er. He said she was wunst the property 
of a particular friend o' hisn, one o' the craowned 
heads o' Ure-up, but the king was obleeged to sell 
'er on accoaunt of a change in his circumstarnces. 
He said there was more 'n two hundred jewills in 
'er wliich was invisible to the naked eye. Waal, 
to make a long story short, I negoshated for 'er 
on the spot, and I 'member just as well as if 't was 
yisterday, he said she would n't warnt cleanin' ef 
I card 'er in mur pocket, keerful, for twenty 
year. 

** So, ye see, I took 'er 'long to Rock Island 
on the Mississippi, where I live, but she seemed 
to go on the jump all the way daown. Waal, 
I carried 'er into Jason's one day, and asked 
kim to give a look into 'er insides, and tell me, 
ef he could, what made 'er act so. He screwed 
his old glass into the right eye, and arter a while 



IIG A WATCH THAT "WANTED CLEANING:' 

he laid 'er down on the coaunter, and says he, 
' She 's a powerful good watch, but she warnts 
cleaniii I ' When I heerd that, I was dumb- 
founded. Says I, ' She was cleaned all over last 
week.' Says he, ' That may be, but she 's full o' 
dirt naow. It 's dusty this foil,' says he, ' and 
some on it 's got into 'er.' Waal, I thought it all 
over, and said he might go to work on 'er next 
day ; and he charged me tew dollars and fifty 
cents for cleanin' on 'er aout. Pooty soon I had 
to go off to Aiu'ory, and she begun to act quair 
agin. So I took 'er into a watchmaker's there, 
and asked him to fling his eye round, and see 
what ailed 'er. W^aal, he did, for ez much as five 
miuits, and then says he, ' She 's a fust-rate watch, 
but she warnts cleanin' ! ' Says I (and I could n't 
help gittiu' riled then), * She 's bin cleaned aout 
twice lately, and that 's a fact.' * Waal,' says he, 
* I never seed a dirtier, and if she ain't 'tended to, 
double quick, in twenty-four hours she '11 bust of 
'er own accord, and fly all to pieces, and never go 
agin.' This illarmed me, nat'rally, and so I told 
him to strip 'er and go to work with his tooth- 



A WATCH THAT ''WAITED CLEANING/' 117 

brush and things, and I 'd pay him what was 
right. So he did, and he sot down on me for one 
seventy-five, and one fifty for what he called m- 
side-entle expenses. Waal, she went ellygant all 
the way on to Milwaukee, but the fust night I got 
thar she begun to hitch and sputter to that ex- 
tent I run over to a watchmaker, early in the 
mornin', for assistance. Waal, he turned 'er over 
three or four times, and kind o' smiled at the 
rumblin' inside on 'er. Then he looked thoughtful 
and pried 'er open. Says I, ' Enny thing serious ? ' 
Says he, — and his reply run through me like a 
fawk, — says he, 'She 's a remarkable good time- 
piece, but she warnts cleanin ! ' Waal, to make an 
end to mur story, I had 'er put through his mill, 
and some o' his ile slung into 'er. He said 't was 
such a ugly job (I told him when he took' er in 
hand to be careful o' the invisible jewills), that his 
bill would be four dollars and ten cents, the ten 
cents bein' for fingerin' careful round the reubies 
and things. Waal, Sir, she cut up agin last 
night, and I stept in to Cross & Jones's, and asked 
their young man to ixamine 'er parts, and pro- 



us A WATCH THAT ''WANTED CLEANING.'' 

noaunce upon 'er. Waal, he rubbed in his mag- 
nify] ng-gl ass, and screwtenized 'er, and says he, 
' That 's the most valuble watch I evei' seed inside 

o' Omaha, but she warnts cleanin^ most y ! ' 

When I heerd that, I expressed myself like a dis- 
gusted night-hawk, and snatched 'er aout o' his 
hands, and brought 'erraound here to ponder over. 
What I wish to inquire is. Stranger (and I ask 
for information), how many times a watch thet 's 
full o' invisible jewills has to be cleaned aout in 
the course o' two months'? I never owned one 
afore, but if the jewills nee-sessiates that expense, 
as I 'm a pore man, had n't I better have 'em 
punched aout, don't you think?" 

And I advised him to have the "jewills" re- 
moved immediately, and sold in Europe for the 
most they would bring. 



^ 




BOTHERSOME PEOPLE, 



BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 






Vi 



ASTER SLOWWORM, the grammarian, 
on glancing at the title of this paper, 
will affirm, without contradiction, that 
the word bothersome cannot be found in the dic- 
tionary. I retort on our verbal patriarch the 
equall}' truthful remark that neither does the 
word enthusiasm exist in Shakespeare! And just 
there I leave Master Slowworm's objection. 

There are loose superfluous mortals who seem 
to have come into the world on a special mis- 
sion to break the Ten Commandments ; and they 
w^ould do it all at one blow, if possible. But I do 
not reckon them among the bothersome people 
of our planet. The law kindly looks after those 



122 BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 

who thus meddle wickedly with certain portions 
of the Decalogue, and deals justly with them all. 
But the botherers in life escape unpunished, and 
go to their graves unbranded with infamy. Their 
tombstones are often, nay, commonly, placed in 
the most respectable corners of the graveyard; 
and I have found, not infrequently, the word 
virtue engraven on their marbles. Annoyances, 
not sinSy have been their offences against man, 
woman, and children kind ; and it was in little 
things they performed their abominations, while 
sojourning above gTound. 

In yonder breezy mound sleeps all that was 
mortal of Mr. Benjamin Borax. The inscription 
above his bones does not record all his worldly 
accomplishments. He had one trait which the 
stone-cutter has omitted ; and I refer to it, in 
passing, simply in justice to B. B.'s remains. 
Having had his acquaintance forty long and tedi- 
ous years, I am qualified to speak feelingly of 
the man ; and I do it without a particle of malice, 
or exultation at his removal from my "list of 
friends." But I will say that, while he was living. 



BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. ' 123 

after an experience elongated through the period 
I have mentioned, death had no longer any ter- 
rors for the members of my immediate family 
or myself. B. B, never meant to " hurt any- 
body's feelings." " He would n't kill a fly " might 
have been chiselled with the rest of his church- 
yard eulogy. But he bothered all who knew him 
to the very verge of unforgiveness. When he 
entered your house, fear fell upon all its inmates ; 
for his want of tact and courtesy, his utter obliv- 
ion to tliose small decencies which make social life 
sweet and commendable, often rendered his pres- 
ence, not to speak it profanely, little short of 
infernal. Bearing about an incapacity for hap- 
piness on his countenance, he would come unsmil- 
ing and unbidden into your nursery, and frighten, 
by the very awkwardness in his face, the small oc- 
cupants almost into idiocy. Not knowing how 
to a'p'proach the infant sense, he bothered the little 
ones by his miscalculations at direful pleasantry 
with them. Dickens mentions a cruel propensity 
which some people have of rumpling the hair of 
small boys, as if they were little dogs that ought 



124 BO THERS OME PE OPL E. 

to be nibbed up somewhere. No sooner does 
a sleek young fellow enter the room, with his 
hair "all in order for compan}'," than up starts 
some great stupid visitor to begin a friendship 
with the lad by ivohhling up his carefully brushed 
locks into a tangled mop of uncomeliness. Such 
a bothersome old towzer was B. B. ; and I confess 
it was not without a secret satisfaction that I 
once saw little Peter F. administer him a sturdy 
kick on his unprotected ankles during the very 
act of mangling up the urchin's pretty golden 
curls. When I called Peter to account next 
moi-ning tor this belligerent outl)reak of temper, 
he said, with considerable emphasis, that he 'd 
"do it again, if Mr. Borax meddled with him!^^ 
(P. F. at that time was aged six, and went to bed 
habitually, without a murmur, at eight o'clock !) 

Children hate to be bothered with questions, 
both in and out of school ; and yet how we bore 
them with catechismal demands, almost in their 
very cradles. As soon as they are old enough 
to stammer out a reply, we arraign their little 
wits, and seek to make them respond to such 



BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 125 

foolish whimsies as, "How old was Methuselah 1" 
" Who discovered America *? " " What do two and 
two make % " and the like. Nervous little Rob 
R. was nearly frightened into fits one day, when 
bungling old Parson Pew, in his hard, unsmiling 
way, with a voice like thunder, asked him sud- 
denly, "Who made the world in six days, and 
rested on the seventh T' " / did ! " screamed the 
child, bursting into tears, " but — I HI — never — 
do so — any more ! " Poor Bob was bothered into 
assuming to himself the formation of a universe, 
and told a sinless lie in order to blurt out a 
promise of future good conduct. 

Emerson, in one of his wise, characteristic sen- 
tences, says we sometimes meet a person who, 
if good manners had not existed, would have in- 
vented them. I know a cumberer of my neigh- 
borhood who would have originated bothersome 
bad ones, if the article had not previously been 
contrived. He brings his total wealth of infe- 
licities with him wherever he comes. When he 
enters your dwelling, mental chaos begins. He 
is anxious and peppery, albeit he is uncertain, 



126 BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 

even to the very Anno Domini in which he is 
at present breathing and fuming. He looks en- 
cyclopaedias, but utters himself in primers. He 
is a perfect master of Misreport. His mind could 
be dispensed with, like a decayed turnip, or an 
out-of-date oyster; and he forgets an event 
before he knows it. Gravity and lassitude would 
better become his lack-brain-itudenarian habit ; 
but he chooses to be conversational and informa- 
tive. He never keeps an appointment. Every- 
thing " slips his mind." He carries two w'atches, 
but he never knows the time of day ; nor (1 am 
bound to say it) of night, either. Once seated at 
your winter fireside, he "outwatches the bear." 
He begins a story as the clock strikes Twelve, and 
when the coal is declining to burn any longer. 
It is near One when the uneasy shadow departs, 
volunteering, as he goes, the unsolicited remark 
that he is " sure to come again next week, when 
he hopes to find me in better spirits." 

I was charmed with J. W.'s experience with a 
ponderous country neighbor of his not long ago, 
who ivould "drop in" just as the family were all 



BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 127 

pointing bedward, and then bother them for an 
hour or two with puffy accounts of his ailments. 
J. W. keeps a parrot, — one of the most sapient 
of birds, — and he lets the chattering, companion- 
able creature walk about the room, strutting, 
with habitual self-importance, here and there as 
pretentious fancy dictates. One night W.'s un- 
prepossessing neighbor settled himself, about nine 
o'clock, in front of the crackling logs, and began 
liis usual hypochondriac recital. The seance 
threatened to be prolonged into midnight. Oba- 
diah's droning voice went sounding on its "dim 
and perilous way " ; and now and then one of the 
female members of the family glided noiselessly 
out of the room, unnoticed by the dreary visitor. 
J. W. felt the need of all his Christian fortitude, 
and was making up his mind for a sitting never 
equalled on a similar occasion in length, when the 
parrot, spying around Obadiah's legs, discovered a 
bare spot lying between the hitched-up trousers 
and the adjacent stocking. Working his way cau- 
tiously under the chair, while the narrator was 
deeply engaged in dull discourse, the bird sud- 



128 BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 

denly pounced upon the uncovered limb, nnd 
adroitly nipped out a piece about the size of a 
small blister. The pain caused Obadiah to sprin<^ 
into the air ; and, seizing his hat, he left the 
house, vowing vengeance on the "pesky parrot." 
And to this day he declares he will never enter 
J. W.'s mansion again, "so long as that tarnal 
bird is round." 

There is a kind of long-drawn bothersome vis- 
itor, who has a habit of disappointing his host 
and hostess by constantly making httle feints of 
going away, but never quite accomplishing it. 
Now he raises himself slowly from his chair, and 
your cheated spirits rise with him. He is about 
to say " good-night," you think. He is preparing 
to depart ! His figure is partly out of the seat in 
which he has been for two hours planted ! He 
seems fairly under way ! One manly effort more, 
and you are free ! Vain hope ! it is only to settle 
himself more firmly that he stretches up, for a 
moment, his awful form. Down he sinks again, 
and you are booked for another hour of "dire 
disaster and supine defeat." ya moths of 



BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 129 

precious moments ! affable wolves of time ! who 
eat up our very seed-brain, and give us nothing 
hi return but unprofitable husks and chaff! What 
golden hours ye have remorselessly destroyed, 
feeding upon those priceless, hoarded evenings 
that never can be restored, — nights that seemed 
made for study and the "mind's most apt en- 
deavor " ! 

The Emperor Julius Caesar, on one occasion, 
proved himself a most bothersome social visitor. 
I read lately one of Cicero's letters to his friend 
Atticus, describing a visit which the august Julius 
had been making at his villa; and the epistle 
gives a most ludicrous account of the Emperor's 
"dropping in" upon him. It seems that the 
world's imperial master had sent word to Cicero 
that he would soon be along his way, and would 
give him a call. The silver-tongued orator w^as 
only too delighted at the promised honor, and 
immediately hurried off a messenger to say, 
" Come, by all means ; happy to see you any 
time; and you must spend several days with me." 
On the morninfj of the bald headed warrior's ex- 



130 BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 

pected arrival, we may judge of Cicero's aston- 
isliment and alarm, when a courier arrived with 
the hitelligeuce that Julius was comfortablj^ on 
his way to the villa, but that he was attended 
by a thousand men, who must also be " put up," 
as we would say nowadays; that is, handsomely 
fed and sheltered during the Emperor's little 
visit. Cicero's accommodations were not exten- 
sive, and his dismay corresponded in inverse 
ratio to the smallness of his quarters. Not an- 
ticipating any such addition to his limited hos- 
pitalities, he was obliged to send out at once, all 
over the neighborhood, for tents and provender; 
and, borrowing here and there, he managed to 
make a fiiir appearance when the great Julius and 
all his host came riding up. But writing about 
the affair to Atticus, after the party had gone on, 
and tranquillity had been restored to his house, 
he says, "The Emperor was very pleasant, and 
all that, but, under the circumstances, he is not 
a man to whom I should ever say again, ' When 
you are passing this wa}' another time, sir, drop 
in and give us a call.'" 



BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 131 

But how various the employment of your pro- 
fessionally ''bothersome people"! Kind-hearted 
B. C. told me he had been bothered for j^ears by 
a reforming inebriate, who made his acquaintance 
in this wise. B. is an old-fashioned clergyman 
who allows himself to be at everybody's call ; and, 
seated one Saturday morning busily "touching 
up " his sermon for the next day, Susan (his Irish 
footman, as he calls her) knocked at the study 
door (B. C. always writes in an apartment up five 
pairs of stairs), and informed the good padre that 
"a gintleman warnted to see his Riverence down 
in the lower intry." Now it is a matter of sev- 
eral minutes, and much expenditure of leg-power, 
to descend those multitudinous flights which lead 
into the hall below; but down goes B., with his 
ever-smihng, ready courtesy, to meet the gintle- 
man who has so kindly called upon him. B. says 
a suggestive odor, not at all aqueous, but com- 
pounded of various cheap and vile liquors, saluted 
his nostrils as he approached the vicinity of his 
imknown caller ; and that when he got fairly into 
the hall he was aware of a presence he had never 



132 BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 

encountered before. The figure raised its head 
with difficulty, and thus delivered itself some- 
what ostentatiously : " I am a reformed inebriate, 
Doctor, and, having taken the oath, would hum- 
bl}- beg your Riverence to lend me five dollars to 
help me keep the pledge." B. C. affirms that he 
could not at the moment determine exactly how 
that precise amount in cuiTency was to help the 
poor man in the object named, but that he 
thought it best to "accommodate his caller to 
the desired sum." Dismissing the whilom ine- 
briate with such counsel as his wise heart can 
always command, B. went up stairs again to his 
dutiful task. A week went by, and that morning 
call had wellnigh vanished from his recollection,, 
when Susan again appeared as heretofore and an- 
nounced a second visit to the doctor from his 
unknown friend. Down went the good man in 
his slippers, anticipating an announcement from 
the poor creature that success had followed his 
efforts to keep sober, and that he had . come to 
express his gratitude. As B. was going down the 
last pair of stairs, the man, holding firmly on to 



BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 133 

the baluster below, looked up confidingly and said, 
*' Doctor, I 've fallen again, and have come for 
five more ! " "I expostulated with him," said the 
doctor, in rehiting the incident to me, "but he 
would not retire until I had repeated the loan, 
and now he is constantly falling, and spends 
half his time in my front entry, bothering me 
for continued fives to enable him to stand up 
against temptation." 

There is a French proverb which declares that 
nothing is certain to happen but the unforeseen ; 
and some bothersome people are constantly illus- 
trating the truth of this Gallic mot. G. T., from 
his youth up, has been a constant exemplification 
of it. His watchful parents placed iron bars 
across his nursery windows, but he elected to fiill 
down the back stairs twice during his nonage, and 
on both occasions damaged his slender chances for 
being reckoned a " pretty fellow." All his life long, 
instead of hitting straight forward, he has bothered 
his agonized associates by striking out sideways 
without warning, and thus getting worsted in every 
contest. One can never be sure of him to this 



134 BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 

dtiy (he is past seventy and alarmingly vigorous), 
and he bothers his best friends by unexpected 
infelicities of thought and action to that degree 
that they sometimes breathe the pious wish that 
he were an aged angel flying somewhere else. To 
enumerate his unlimited feats in the art of bother- 
ation would require the pen of a ready writer. 

If G. T. always does the wrong thing his kins- 
man X. as incontinently says the wrong one, and 
bothers people in that way. After reading and 
delighting in that wonderful romance, "Tlie Mar- 
ble Faun," on being introduced to the distin- 
guished author, X. asked him if "he had ever 
been in Italy. ^' And it is related that he inno- 
cently inquired of Mrs. Stowe one day " if she had 
looked much into the subject of slavery" ! "Do 
you take sugar in jonv coffee, Mr. X.'?" asked 
that careful, almost too immaculate housekeeper, 
the hospitable lady of Joy Cottage, as she handed 
him a cup of her aromatic beverage. "Never 
when the coffee is good," replied X., bowing his 
homage to our admirable hostess. A few moments 
afterwards we heard his loud, explosive voice call- 



BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 135 

ing after Tom, the servant, to "^x^ss the sugar'" ! 
Now there is nothing positively had about X. : on 
the contrary, there is much that is positively good 
in him. At the first tap of the drum he ran off 
to the war, and among its battle-records there are 
no pages more fearless than his. Out of his mod- 
est income he supports one or more indigent lads 
(sons of his dead comrades) at the university. 
He is generous without fault ; but he is tranquilly 
hothersome in the way I have indicated to the very 
margin of patient endurance. He is a saint in 
morals, but a desperate offender in manners. 

My old acquaintance W. H. says the people who 
bother him most are those human Curiosity ter- 
riers who watch all your sayings and doings, and 
never let you stir without following you up every- 
where with this keen scent. They wish to know 
" all about you." They seem always on a cheerful 
tour of investigation among other people's faults 
or foibles. Their constant cry is, " Lo here ! " or 
" Lo there ! " They study " to find out your mo- 
tives " even. They desire to be informed (for their 
own satisfaction) what actuated you to move thus 



136 BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 

or thus. Tristram Shandy called this class of 
botherers " Motive Mongers," and accused his own 
father of being one of them. Tristram averred 
that the old gentleman was a very dangerous per- 
son for a man to sit by, either laughing or crying, 
for he generally knew your motive for doing both 
'' much better than you knew it yourself." Silas 
W. carried this searching demand of reasons for 
conduct to such a length that I once heard him 
express a decided aversion to Moses, " for," said 
he, " I never could exactly fathom that man's mo- 
tives ! " 

Among the smaller brood of bothersome people, 
my cousin G. reckons those dense- witted, circum- 
stantial souls who ivill interruj^t your best story 
with a doubt or a denial of its verity. They live in 
an atmosphere of imperfect sympathies, and goad 
you to blasphemy almost by their stolid unrecep- 
tivity. The man who robs your anecdote of its 
prosperity by an ill-timed arrest of its recital, says 
G., would bury his own father before the remains 
are decently ready for sepulture. 

I had written thus far, when a restless neighbor 



BOTHERSOME PEOPLE. 137 

of mine called to bear me away, over a hot road, 
to view a bloated bowlder lie had discovered miles 
off, on one of his peregrinations. This kind, mis- 
taken soul constantly bothers me by insisting on 
" showing me things " I do not desire to see. His 
mania is that of an Indicator. Some " prospect," 
some famous kitchen-garden, somebody's pig or 
poultry, anything big enough " to show," trans- 
ports him into a fever of exhibition, and you never 
meet him but he burns to take you somewhere to 
see something, until you long to bequeath him as 
a constant resident to the next county. 

But the length of this paper is, I perceive, 
already a glaring illustration of my subject, and 
unwittingly I become one of the ^^ Bothersome Peo- 
'pW'' I attempt to describe ! 




PLEASANT GHOSTS. 



o©iK3r> 



PLEASANT GHOSTS. 



li*^ 



i% 



OFTEN amuse myself, as I sit alone half- 
dreaming before the fire in a certain 
upper room, looking out on the river 
Charles, by calling up the memorable forms of 
those once active "ministers of thought," who at 
various periods during the past twenty years have 
slept in this very apartment, and are now "to calm, 
unwaking silence consecrate." 

Falling into an afternoon doze not long ago, as 
I rested in the twilight, " I saw a vision in my 
sleep," so enchanting in all its details that I shall 
never forget the exquisite impression left on my 
mind. I had been re-reading that afternoon Plu- 
tarch's divine essay " On the Tranquillity of the 
Mind," and had felt a soothing influence like a dis- 



142 PLEASANT GHOSTS. 

tilled aroma rising up out of its lovely pages. When 
I came to these words I lingered over them several 
minutes, half-closing the book : " For as censers, 
even after they are empty, do for a long time re- 
tain their fragrancy, as Carneades expresseth it, so 
the good actions of a wise man perfume his mind, 
and leave a rich scent behind them; so that joy 
is, as it were, watered with these essences and 
owes its flourishing to them." Then suddenly I 
seemed to be listening to the beloved voice of a 
poet, reading from his manuscript an unprinted 
piece, which, in the kindness of an old friend- 
ship, he had brought to gladden me. I thought 
when he pronounced these words, — 

" Where are the others ? Voices from the deep 
Caverns of darkness answer nie, " They sleep ! " 

I heard in the outer passage a low, subdued sym- 
phony played only as a master-hand can call such 
harmonies into being. The notes rippled on as if 
caressed into sound by a most loving hand, and 
although veiled and seemingly remote in space, 
they were yet clear enough to be distinctly audi- 
ble throughout the room. Now the music was a 



PLEASANT GHOSTS. 143 

kind of solemn march, intermingled with chants 
as if from antiphonals, and then it alternated into 
labyrinthine infinities of joyous, mystical harmony, 
expressive of rapturous praise and inexhaustible 
worship. On it seemed to come, — 

" As light and wind within some delicate cloud," — 
and pause outside the little room where I was sit- 
ting. Soon the door swung noiselessly open, and 
looking up I saw a beautiful procession of well- 
known forms enter the dimly lighted apartment. 
The faces were those I had known in years past, 
and each countenance was radiant with a glow of 
recognition, as it approached the white-haired poet 
who sat reading his glowing lines in the twilight. 
I was about to apprise him of the entrance of so 
many old and dear friends (shadows although I 
knew them to be), when one of the figures gave 
me a sign of warning not to disturb the flow of 
the poem, intimating with raised forefinger that 
they had all come to listen. When the last two 
lines — 

" And as the evening twilight fades away, 
The sky is filled with stars invisible by day " — 



144 PLEASANT GHOSTS. 

fell from the poet's lips, and he was folding up 
the manuscript of " Morituri Salutamus," a holy 
silence seemed to pervade the room. Then the 
symphony began again, and as it now rose and 
died away, " a kind of fading rainbow-music on 
the air," the figures moved forward toward the 
spot where their old companion was sitting. Each 
one seemed to bend above him for a moment with 
infinite tenderness and illumined love, and then 
to kiss his forehead twice with a kind of rapture. 
I know not how many voiceless spirits had thus 
entered the room, for a mist had fallen before my 
eyes; but I recognized the never-to-be-forgotten 
forms of H. and D. and S. and A. and T. and K. 
and F. and M., — 

"Through lime and change unquenchably the same," — 

just as I had seen them come about Hyperion in 
the old remembered days. 

A brand falling on the hearth dispersed the 
immortal company, — the living and the dead 
" inheritors of w^ell-fulfilled renown " ; and when 
I descended to the library and told my wife what I 



PLEASANT GHOSTS. 145 

had seen and heard up stairs, she said, with a wise 
and dehghted smile, " This is what comes of living- 
next door to a great artist. I have never heard 
him play Beethoven and Bach, through the ceil- 
ing, more divinely than he has rendered them 
during the last half-hour. It is a fortune in itself 
to live in the next house, with thin partitions 
between, to a master like the Herr Otto D. ; for 
such a neighbor has the power not only to gladden 
our waking hours, but to bring us the blessed 
boon of pleasant dreams." 




THE PETTIBOM LIMAGG. 



/^a9£3\ 






THE PETTIBONE LINEAGE. 




E were sitting around the blazing fire one 
wet winter night, in Crawford's Roman 
studio, when somebody started the sub- 
ject of inherited wealth and talent. There were 
half a dozen artists in the group, and among them 
the handsome and successful Esek Pettibone. He 
was an aristocratic-looking youth, better dressed 
than his companions, and his air was that of a 
man who had a pedigree behind him that entitled 
hira to hold up his head anywhere. None of us 
knew exactly the story of his life, but we all 
thought he belonged to a " fine old family " some- 
where in America. After Crawford, who talked 
remarkably well, had told several anecdotes apro- 



150 THE PETTIBONE LINEAGE. 

pos of the subjects up for comment, he turned to 
Mr. Pettibone, and asked him to favor the com- 
pany with a certain little incident in his own life, 
feeling sure that we should all be interested in the 
narrative. The elegant young fellow crossed his 
legs, fondled his mustache in a way that meant 
willingness, and told the following bit of personal 
history : — 

The name Esek Pettibone, gentlemen, belongs 
to a remote and pious people, and I Avish to affirm 
in the outset that it is a good thing to be well- 
born. In thus connecting the mention of my 
name with a positive statement, I am not unaware 
that a catastrophe lies coiled up in the juxtaposi- 
tion. But I cannot help saying plainly that I am 
still in favor of a distinguished family-tree. Esto 
PERPETUA ! To have had somebody for a great- 
grandfather that was somebody is exciting. To 
be able to look back on long lines of ancestry that 
were rich, but respectable, seems decorous and all 
right. The present Earl of Warwick, I think, 
must have an idea that strict justice has been 



THE PETTIBONE LINEAGE, 151 

done him in the way of being launched properly 
into the world. I saw the Duke of Newcastle 
once, and, as the farmer in Conway described 
Mount Washington, I thought the Duke felt a 
propensity to " hunch up some." Somehow it is 
pleasant to look doiun on the crowd and have a 
conscious right to do so. 

Left an orphan at thp tender age of four years, 
having no brothers or sisters to prop me round 
with young affections and sympathies, I fell into 
three pairs of hands, excellent in their way, but 
peculiar. Patience, Eunice, and Mary Ann Petti- 
bone were my aunts on my father's side. All my 
mother's relations kept sliady when the lonely 
orphan looked about for protection ; but Patience 
Pettibone, in her stately way, said : " The boy 
belongs to a good family, and he shall never want 
while his three aunts> can support him." So I 
went to live with my plain but benignant protec- 
tors, in the State of New Hampshire. 

During my boyhood, the best-drilled lesson that 
fell to my keeping was this : " Respect yourself. 
We come of more than ordinary parentage. Su- 



152 THE PETTIBONE LINEAGE. 

perior blood was probably concerned in getting up 
the Pettibones. Hold your head erect, and some 
day you shall have proof of your high lineage." 

I remember once, on being told that I must not 
share my juvenile sports with the butcher's three 
little beings, I begged to know why not. Aunt 
Eunice looked at Patience, and Mary Ann knew 
what she meant. 

" My child," slowly murmured the eldest sister, 
" our family no doubt came of a very old stock ; 
perhaps we belong to the nobility. Our ancestors, 
it is thought, came over laden with honors, and no 
doubt were embarrassed with riches, though the 
latter importation has dwindled in the lapse of 
years. Respect yourself, and when you grow up 
you will not regret that your old and careful aunt 
did not wish you to pla}^ with butchers' oiFspring." 

I felt mortified that I had ever had a desire to 
" knuckle up " w^ith any but kings' sons or sultans'" 
little boys. I lodged to be among my equals in 
the urchin line, and fly my kite with only high- 
born youngsters. 

Thus 1 lived in a constant scene of self-enchant- 



THE PETTIBONE LINEAGE. 153 

ment on the part of the sisters, who assumed all 
the port and feeling that properly belong to ladies 
of quality. Patrimonial splendor to come danced 
before their dim eyes ; and handsome settlements, 
gay equipages, and a general grandeur of some 
sort loomed up in the future for the American 
branch of the House of Pettibone. 

It was a life of opulent self-delusion, which my 
aunts were never tired of nursing ; and I was too 
young to doubt the reality of it. All the mem- 
bers of our little houseliold held up their heads, as 
if each said, in so many words, " There is no origi- 
nal sin in our composition, whatever of that com- 
modity there may be mixed up with the common 
clay of Snowborough." 

Aunt Patience was a star, and dwelt apart. 
Aunt Eunice looked at her through a determined 
pair of spectacles, and worshipped while she gazed. 
The youngest sister lived in a dreamy state of 
honors to come, and had constant zoological vis- 
ions of lions, griffins, and unicorns, drawn and 
quartered in every possible style known to the 
Heralds' CoUeiie. The Keverend Hebrew Bullet, 



154 THE PET TIB ONE LINEAGE. 

who used to drop in quite often and drink several 
compulsory glasses of home-made wine, encour- 
aged his three parishioners in their aristocratic 
notions, and extolled them for what he called their 
"stooping down to every-day life." He differed 
with the ladies of our house only on one point. 
He contended that the unicorn of the Bible and 
the rhinoceros of to-day were one and the same 
animal. My aunts held a different opinion. 

In the sleeping-room of my Aunt Patience re- 
posed a trunk. Often during my childish years I 
longed to lift the lid, and spy among its contents 
the treasures my young fancy conjured up as lying 
there in state. I dared not ask to have the cover 
raised for my gratification, as I had often been told 
I was " too little " to estimate aright what that 
armorial box contained. "When you grow^ up, 
you shall see the inside of it," Aunt Mary Ann 
used to say to me ; and so I wondered and wished, 
V)ut all in vain. I must have the virtue of yems, 
bef(^re I could view the treasures of past magnifi- 
cence, so long entombed in that wooden sarcoi^ha- 



TUB PETTIBONE LINEAGE. 155 

gas. Once I saw the faded sisters bending over 
the trunk together, and, as I thought, embahning 
something in camphor. Curiosity impelled me to 
linger, but, nnder some pretext, I was nodded out 
of the room. 

Although my kinswomen's means were far from 
ample, they determined that Swiftmouth College 
should have the distinqtion of calling me one of 
her sons, and accordingly I was in due time sent 
for preparation to a neighboring academy. Years 
of study and hard fare in country boarding-houses 
told upon my self-importance as the descendant of 
a great Englishman, notwithstanding all my let- 
ters from the honored three came freighted with 
counsel to " respect myself, and keep up the dig- 
nity of the family." Growing-up man forgets 
good counsel. Tlie Arcadia of respectability is 
apt to give place to the levity of football, and 
other low-toned accomplishments. The book of 
life, at that period, opens readily at fun and frolic, 
and the insignia of greatness give the school-boy 
no envious pangs. 

I was nineteen when I entered tlie hoary halls 



156 THE PETTIBONE LINEAGE. 

of Swiftmouth. I call them hoary, because they 
had been built more than fifty years. To me 
they seemed unconmionly hoary, and I snuffed 
antiquity in the dusty purlieus. I now began to 
study in good earnest the wisdom of the past. I 
saw clearly the value of dead men and mouldy 
precepts, especially if the former had been en- 
tombed a thousand years, and if the latter were 
well done in sounding Greek and Latin. I began 
to reverence royal lines of deceased monarchs, and 
longed to connect my own name, now growing into 
college popularity, with some far-off mighty one 
who had ruled in pomp and luxury his obsequious 
people. The trunk in Snowborough troubled my 
dreams. In that receptacle still slept the proof 
of our family distinction. " I will go," said I, " to 
the home of my aunts the next vacation, and there 
learn how we became mighty, and discover pre- 
cisely why we don't practise to-day our inherited 
claims to glory." 

I went to Snowborough. Aunt Patience was 
now anxious to lay before her eager nephew the 
proof he burned to behold. But first she must 



THE PET TIB ONE LINEAGE. 157 

explain. All the old family documents and let- 
ters were, no doubt, destroyed in the great fire 
of '98, as nothing in the shape of parchment or 
paper implying nobility had ever been discovered 
in Snowborough, or elsewhere. Bat — there had 
been preserved, for many years, a suit of imperial 
clothes, that had been worn by their great-grand- 
father in England, and, no doubt, in the New 
World also. These garments had been carefully 
watched and guarded ; for were they not the 
proof that their owner belonged to a station in 
life, second, if second at all, to the royal court of 
King George himself 1 Precious casket, into which I 
was soon to have the privilege of gazing ! Through 
how many long years these fond, foolish virgins 
had lighted their unflickering lamps of expectation 
and hope at this cherished shrine ! 

I was now on my way to the family repository 
of all our greatness. I went up stairs " on the 
jump." We all knelt down before the well-pre- 
served box ; and my proud Aunt Patience, in a 
somewhat reverent manner, turned the key. My 
heart, — I am not ashamed to confess it now, 



158 THE PET TIB ONE LINEAGE. 

although it is several years since the partle carree, 
in search of family honors, were on their knees that 
summer afternoon in Snowborough, — my heart 
beat high. I was about to look on that which 
might be a duke's or an earl's regalia. And I was 
descended from the owner in a direct line ! I had 
lately been reading Shakespeare's " Titus Androni- 
cus " ; and I remembered, there before the trunk, 
the lines, — 

" sacred receptacle of my joys, 
Sweet cell of virtue and iioLility ! " 

The lid went up, and the sisters began to unroll 
the precious garments, which seemed all enshrined 
in aromatic gums and spices. The odor of that 
interior lives with me to this day; and I grow 
faint with the memory of tliat hour. With pious 
precision the clothes were uncovered, and at last 
the whole suit was laid before my expectant 
eyes. 

Whatever dreadful shock may be in reserve for 
my declining years, I am certain I can bear it ; 
for I went through that scene at Snowborough, 
and still live ! 



THE PETTIBONE LINEAGE. 159 

When the garments were fully displayed, all the 
aunts looked at me. I had been to college ; I had 
studied Burke's " Peerage " ; I had been once to 
New York. Perhaps I could immediately name 
the exact station in noble British life to which 
that suit of clothes belonged. I could ; I saw it 
all at a glance. I grew flustered and pale. I 
dared not look my poor deluded female relatives 
in the face. 

" What rank in the peerage do these gold-laced 
garments and big buttons betoken 1 " cried all 
three. 

" It is a suit of servant's livery T' gasped I, and. 
fell back with a shudder. 

That evening, after the sun had gone down, we 
buried those hateful garments in a ditch at the 
bottom of the garden. Ptest there, perturbed 
body-coat, yellow breeches, brown gaiters, and 
all! 

" Vain pomp and glory of tliis world, I hate ye! " 



GETTING HOME AGAIN, 



^m^ 



GETTING HOME AGAIN. 

A REVERIE. 




T is a good thing, said an aged Chinese 
TraveUing Philosopher, for every man, 
sooner or later, to get back again to his 
own teacup. And Oo Long was right. Travel 
may be "the conversion of money into mind," — 
and happy the man who has turned much coin 
into that precious commodity, — but it is a good 
thing, after being tossed about the world from the 
Battery to Africa, — that dry-nurse of lions, as 
Horace calls her, — to anchor once more beside the 
old familiar tea-urn on the old familiar tea-table. 
This is the only " steamy column " worth hailing 
with a glad welcome after long absence from home, 



1G4 GETTING HOME AGAIN. 

and fully entitled to be heartily applauded for its 
" loud-hissing " propensities. 

I am not a Marco Polo or a William de Ru- 
bruquis, and I have no wonders to tell of the 
Great Mogul or the Great Cham. I did not sail 
for Messrs. Pride, Pomp, Circumstance, and Com- 
pany ; consequently, I have no great exploits to 
recount. I have been wrecked at sea only once 
in my many voyages, and, so far as I know my 
tastes, do not care to solbcit aid again to be thrown 
into the same awkward situation. But for a time 
I have been 

" Placed far amid the melancholy main," 
and now I am among my own teacups. This is 
happiness enough for a cold winter's night. Mid- 
ocean, and mid teacups ! Stupendous change, 
let me tell you, worthy friend, who never yet set 
sail where sharks and other strange sea-cattle bob 
their noses above the brine, — who never lived 
forty days in the bowels of a ship, unable to hold 
your head up to the captain's bluff " good-morn- 
ing" or the steward's cheery "good-night." Sir 
Philip Sidney discourses of a riding-master he 



GETTING HOME AGAIN. 1G5 

encountered in Vienna, who spoke so eloquently 
of tlie noble animal he had to deal with, that he. 
almost persuaded Sir Philip to wish himself a 
horse. I have known ancient mariners expa- 
tiate so lovingly on the frantic enjoyments of the 
deep sea, that very youthful listeners have for the 
time resolved to know no other existence. If the 
author of the "Arcadia" had been permitted to 
become a prancing steed, he might, after the first 
exhilarating canter, have lamented his equine 
state. How many a first voyage, begun in hilarious 
impatience, has caused a bitter repentance ! The 
sea is an overrated element, and I have nothing to 
say in its favor. Because I am out of its uneasy 
lap to-night, I almost resemble in felicity Rich- 
ter's Walt, who felt himself so happy, that he 
was transported to the third heaven, and held 
the other two in his hand that he might give them 
away. To-morrow morning I shall not hear that 
swashing, scaring sound directly overhead on the 
wet deck, which has so often murdered slumber. 
Delectable sensation that I do not care a rope's- 
end " how many knots " I am going, and that 



166 GETTING HOME AGAIN. 

my ears are so far away from that eternal " Ay, 
ay, sir!" "The whales," says old Chapman, 
speaking of Neptmie, "exulted under him, and 
knew their mighty king." Let them exult, say 
I, and be blowed, and all due honor to their salt 
sovereign ! but of their personal acquaintance I 
am not ambitious. I have met them now and 
then in the sixty thousand miles of their watery 
playing-places I have passed over, and they are not 
pretty to look at. Roll on, — and so will I, for the 
present, at least, as far out oiyour reach as possible. 

Yes, wise denizen of the Celestial Empire, it is a 
good, nay, a great thing, to return even to so small 
a home-object as an old teacup. As I lift the 
bright brim to my lips, I repeat it. As I pour out 
my second, my third, and my fourth, I say it 
again. Oo Long was right ! 

And now, as the rest of the household have all 
gone up bed-ward, and left me with their good- 
night tones, 

"Like flowers' voices, if they could but speak," 
I dip my pen into the cocked hat of the brave little 



GETTING HOME AGAIN. 1G7 

bronze warrior who has fed us all so many years 
with ink from the place where his brains ought to 
be. Pausing before I proceed to paper, I look 
around on our household gods. The coal bursts 
into crackling fits of merriment, as I thrust the 
poker between the iron ribs of the grate. It 
seems to say, in the most persuasive audible 
manner of which it is capable, " 0, go no more 
a-roaming, a-roaming, across the windy sea ! " 
How odd it seems to be sitting here again, listen- 
ing to the old clock out there in the entry ! Often 
I seemed to hear it during the months that have 
flown away, when I knew that " our ancient " 
was standing sentinel for Time in another hem- 
isphere. One night, dark and stormy on the 
Mediterranean, as I lay wakeful and watchful in 
the little steamer that was bearing us painfully on 
through the noisy tempest towards St. Peter's 
and the Colosseum, suddenly, above the tumult 
of the voyage, this household monitor began 
audibly and regularly, I thought, to mark the 
seconds. Then it must have been only fancy. 
Now it is something more, and I know that our 



1G8 GETTING HOME AGAIN. 

mahogany friend is really wagging his brassy 
beard just outside the door. I remember now, as 
I lay listening that rough night at sea, how Mil- 
ton's magic-sounding line came to me beating a sad 
melody with the old clock's imagined tramp, — 

*' The Lars aud Lemures moan with midnight plaint." 

Let the waves bark to-night far out on " the deso- 
late, rainy seas," — the old clock is all right in 
our entry ! 

Landed, and all safe at last ! my much-abused, 
lock-broken, unhinged portmanteau unpacked and 
laid ignobly to rest under the household eaves ! 
Stay a moment, — let me pitch this inky passport 
into the fire. How it writhes and growls black in 
the face ! And now it will trouble its owner no 
more forever. It was a foolish, extravagant com- 
panion, and I am glad to be rid of it. One little 
blazing fragment lifts itself out of the flame, and 
I can trace on the smouldering relic the stamp 
of Austria. Go back again into the grate, and 
perish with the rest, dark blot ! 

I look around this quiet apartment, and won- 



GETTING HOME AGAIN. 169 

der if it be all true, this getting home again. I 
stir the fire once more to assure myself that I 
am not somewhere else, — that the street outside 
my window is not known as Jermyn Street 
in the Haymarket, or the Via Babuino near the 
Pincio, or Princes Street, near the Monument. 
How can I determine that I am not dreaming, 
and that I shall not wake up to-morrow morn- 
ing and find myself on the Arno 1 Perhaps I am 
7iot really back again where there are no 

" Eremites and friars, 
Wliite, black, and gray, with all their trumpery." 

Perhaps I am a flamingo, a banyan-tree, or a man- 
darin. But there stands the teacup, and identity 
is sure ! 

Here at last, then, for a live certainty ! But 
how strange it all seems, resting safely in easy 
slippers, to recall some of the far-off scenes so 
lately present to me ! Yesterday was it, or a few 
weeks ago, that this " excellent canopy," this mod- 
est roof, dwelt three thousand miles away to the 
westward of me 1 i\i this moment stowed away in 
a snuggery called my own ; and then — how brief 



170 GETTING HOME AGAIN. 

a period it seems ! what a small parenthesis in 
time! — putting another man's latch-key into an- 
other man's door, night after niglit, in a London 
fog, and feeling for the unfamiliar aperture with 
all the sensation of an innocent housebreaker ! 
Muffled here in the oldest of dressing-gowns, that 
never lifted its arms ten rods from the spot where 
it was born ; and only a few weeks ago lolling out 
of C. R.'s college-window at Oxford, counting the 
deer, as they nibbled the grass, and grouped them- 
selves into beautiful pictures on the sward of an- 
cient Magdalen ! 

As I look into the red fire in the grate, I 
think of the scarlet coats flashing not long ago in 
Stratford, when E. F., kindest of men and mer- 
riest of hosts took us all to the " meet." I gaze 
round the field again, and enjoy the enlivening 
scene. White-haired and tall, our kind-hearted 
friend walks his glossy mare up and down the 
turf. His stalwart sons, with sport imbrowned, 
proud of their sire, call attention to the spar- 
kle in the old man's eye. I am mounted on a 
fiery little animal, and am half-frightened at the 



GETTING HOME AGAIN. 171 

thought of what she may do with me wlieii the 
chase is high. Confident that a roll is inevi- 
table, and that, with a dislocated neck, enjoyment 
would be out of the question, I pull bridle, and 
carefully dismount, hoping not to attract atten- 
tion. Whereat all my English cousins beg to 
inquire, " What 's the row % " I whisper to the 
red-coated brave prancing near me, that " I have 
changed my mind, and will not follow the hunt 
to-day, — another time I shall be most happy, 
— just now I am not quite up to the mark, — 
next week I shall be all right again," etc. One 
of the lithe hounds, who seems to have steel 
springs in his hmd legs, looks contemptuously at 
the American stranger, and turns up his long nose 
like a moral insinuation. Off they fly ! I w^atch 
the beautiful cavalcade bound over the brook, and 
sweep away into the woodland passes. Then I 
saunter down by the Avon, and dream away the 
daylight in endless visions of long ago, w^hen sweet 
Will and his merry comrades moved about these 
pleasant haunts. Returning to the hall, I find 
I have walked ten miles over the breezy country, 



172 GETTING HOME AGAIN. 

and knew it not, — so pleasant is the fi-agrant 
turf that has been often pressed by the feet of 
Nature's best-beloved child. Round the mahog- 
any tree that night I hearken as the hunters tell 
the glories of their sport, — how their horses, like 
Homer's steeds, 

" Devoured up the plain " ; 
and I can hear now, in imagination, the voices 
of the deep-mouthed hounds rising and swelling 
among the Warwick glens. 

Neither can I forget, as I sit musing here, 
whose green English carpet, down in Kent, I so 
lately rested on under the trees, — nor how I 
wandered off with the lord of that hospitable 
manor to an old castle hard by his grounds, and 
climbed with him to the turret-tops, — nor how 
I heard him repeople in fancy the aged ruin, as 
we leaned over the w\all together and looked into 
the desolate courtyard below. 

Let me bear in mind, too, how happil}^ the hours 
went by me so recently in the vine-embowered 
cottage of dear L. H., the beautiful old man with 
silver hair, — 



GETTING HOME AGAIN. 173 

''As hoary frost with spangles doth attire 
The mossy branches of an oak." 

The sound of the poet's voice was hke the musical 
fall of water in my ears, and every sentence he 
uttered then is still a melody. As I sit dreamily 
here, he speaks again of " life's morning march, 
when his bosom was young," and of his later 
years, when his struggles were many and keen, 
and only his pen was the lever which rolled 
poverty away from his door. I can hear him, as 
I pause over this leaf, as I listened to the old 
clock that night at sea. He tells me of his cher- 
ished companions, now all gone, — of Shelley, and 
Keats, and Charles Lamb, whom he loved, — of 
Byron, and Coleridge, and the rest. As I sit at 
his little table, he hands me a manuscript, and 
says it is the " Endymion," John Keats's gift to 
himself. He reads from it some of his favorite 
lines, and the tones of his voice are very tender 
over his dead friend's poem. As I pass out of 
his door that evening, the moon falls on his white 
locks, his thin hand rests for a moment on my 
shoulder, and I hear him say very kindly, " God 



174 GETTING HOME AGAIN. 

bless you ! " And when, a few months later, I 
am among the Alpine hills, and word comes to me 
that L, H. is laid to rest in Kensal Green Church- 
yard, I am grateful to have looked upon his 
cheerful countenance, and to have heard him say 
those sacred last words. 

Gayest of cities, bright Bois de Boulogne, and 
splendid cafes ! I do not much affect your 
shows, but cannot dismiss forever the cheerful 
little room, cloud-environed almost, up to which 
I have so often toiled, after days of hard walking 
among the gaudy streets of the French capital. 
One pleasant scene, at least, rises unbidden, as 
I recall the past. It is a brisk, healthy morn- 
ing, and I walk in the direction of the Tuile- 
ries. Bending my steps toward the palace (it is 
yet early, and few loiterers are abroad in the 
leafy avenues), I observe a group of three per- 
sons, not at all distinguished in their appear- 
ance, having a roistering good time in the Im- 
perial Garden. One of them is a little boy, with 
a chubby, laughing face, who shouts loudly to 
his father, a grave, thoughtful gentleman, who 



GETTING HOME AGAIN. 175 

runs backwards, endeavoring to out-race his child. 
The mother, a fair-haired woman, with her bonnet 
half loose in the wind, strives to attract the boy's 
attention and win him to her side. They all run 
and leap in the merry morning air, and, as I 
watch them more nearly, I know them to be 
the royal family out larking before Paris is astir. 
They have hung up a picture in my gallery of 
memory, very pleasant to look at, this cold night 
in America. Alas ! they were not always so happy 
as when they romped together in the garden ! 

The days that are fled still knock at the door 
and enter. I am walking on the banks of the 
Esk, toward a friendly dwelling in Lasswade, — 
Mavis Bush they call the pretty place at the foot 
of the hill. A slight figure, clad in black, waits 
for me at the garden-gate, and bids me welcome 
in accents so kindly, that I, too, feel the magic 
influence of his low, sweet voice, — an eff'ect 
which Wordsworth described to me, years before, 
as eloquence set to music. The face of my host 
is very pale, and, when he puts his thin arm 
within mine, I feel how frail a body may con- 



176 GETTING HOME AG ATM. 

tain a spirit of fire. I go into his modest abode 
and listen to his wonderful talk, wishing all 
the while that the hours were months, that I 
might linger there, spellbound, day and night, 
before the master. He proposes a ramble across 
the meadows to Roslin Chapel, and on the way 
he discourses of the fascinating drug so painfully 
associated with his name in literature, — of 
Christopher North, in whose companionship he 
delighted among the Lakes, — of Elia, whom he 
recalled as the most lovable man among his 
friends, and whom he has well described else- 
where as a Diogenes with the heart of a Saint 
John. In the dark evening he insists npon sit- 
ting out with me on my return to Edinbnrgh. 
AVhen it grows late, and the mists are heavy on 
the mountains, we stand together, clasping hands 
of farewell in the dim road, the cold Scotch hills 
looming np all about ns. As the small figure 
of the English Opinm-Eater glides away into the 
midnight distance, my eyes strain after him to 
catch one more glimpse. The Esk roars, and 
I hear his footsteps no longer. 



GETTING HOME AG A FN. 177 

The scene changes, as the clock strikes in the 
entry. I am lingering in the piazza of the 
Winged Lion, and the bronze giants in then- 
turret overlooking the square raise their ham- 
mers and beat the solemn march of Time. As 
I float away through the watery streets, old Shy- 
lock shuffles across the bridge, black barges 
glide by me in the silent canals, groups of un- 
familiar faces lean from the balconies, and I 
hear the plashing w^aters lap the crumbling walls 
of Venice, with its dead doges and decaying 
palaces. 

Again I stir the fire, and feel it is home all 
about me. Bat I like to sit longer and think 
of that rosy evening last summer, when, walking 
into Interlachen, I beheld the ghost-like figure of 
the Jungfrau issuing out of her cloudy palace to 
welcome the stars, — of a cool, bright, autumnal 
morning on the western battlements overlooking 
Genoa, the blue Mediterranean below mirroring 
the silent fleet that lay so motionless on its 
bosom, — of a midnight visit to the Colosseum 
with a band of German students, who bore torches 



178 GETTING HOME AGAIN. 

in and out of the time-worn arches, and sang 
their echoing songs to the full moon, — of days, 
how many and how magical 1 when I awoke every 
morning to say, " We are in Rome ! " 

But it grows late, and it is time now to give 
over these reflections. Let me wind up my 
watch, and put out the candle. 




HOW TO Rouan it. 



HOW TO ROUGH IT. 




TFE has few things better than this," 
said Dr. Johnson, on feeling himself 
settled in a coach, and rolling along the 
road. I cannot agree with the great man. Times 
have changed since the Doctor and Mr. Boswell 
travelled for pleasure ; and I much prefer an ex- 
pedition to Moosehead, or a tramp in the Adiron- 
dack, to being boxed up in a four-wheeled ark 
and made " comfortable," according to the Doc- 
tor's idea of felicity. 

Francis Galton, Explorer, and Secretary to the 
Royal Geographical Society, has lately done the 
world a benefit by teaching its children how to 
travel. Few persons know the important secrets 



182 EOW TO ROUGH IT. 

of how to walk, how to run, how to ride, how 
to cook, how to defend, how to ford rivers, how to 
make rafts, how to fish, how to hunt, in short, 
how to do the essential things that every travel- 
ler, soldier, sportsman, emigrant, and missionary- 
should be conversant with. The world is full of 
deserts, prairies, bushes, jungles, swamps, rivers, 
and oceans. How to " get round " the dangers 
of the land and the sea in the best possible way, 
how to shift and contrive so as to come out 
safely, are secrets w^ell worth knowing, and Mr. 
Galton has found the key. In this brief paper 
I shall frequently avail myself of the informa- 
tion he imparts, confident that in these days 
his wise directions are better than fine gold to a 
man who is obliged to rough it over the world, no 
matter where his feet may wander, his horse may 
travel, or his boat may sail. 

Wherewithal shall a man be clothed 1 Let us 
begin at the beginning with flannel always. Ex- 
perience has settled that flannel next the skin is 
indispensable for health to a traveller, and the 
sick and dead lists always include largely the 



HOW TO ROUGH IT. 183 

names of those who neglect this material. Cotton 
stands Number Two on the list, and linen nowhere. 
Only last summer careless Tom Bowers achieved 
his quietus for the season by getting hot and 
wet and cold in one of his splendid Paris linen 
shirts, and now he wears calico ones whenever he 
wishes to ''appear proper" at Nahant or Newport. 

"The hotter the ground the thicker your socks," 
was the advice of an old traveller who once went 
a thirty-days' tramp at my side through the Alp 
country in summer. I have seen many a city 
bumpkin start for a White Mountain walk in the 
thinnest of cotton foot-coverings, but I never 
knew one to try them a second time. 

Stout shoes are preferable to boots always, and 
a wise traveller never omits to grease well his 
leather before and during his journey. Do not for- 
get to put a pair of old slippers into your knap- 
sack. After a hard day's toil, they are like magic, 
under foot. Let me remind the traveller whose 
feet are tender at starting that a capital remedy 
for blistered feet is to rub them at night with 
spirits mixed with tallow dropped from a candle. 



184 now TO ROUGH IT. 

An old friend of mine thought it a good plan to 
soap the inside of the stocking before setting out, 
and I have seen him break a raw eg^^ into his 
shoes before putting them on, saying it softened 
the leather and made him " perfect " for the day. 

Touching coat, waistcoat, and trousers, there 
can be but one choice. Coarse tweed does the best 
business on a small capital. Cheap and strong, 
I have always found it the most ''paying" arti- 
cle in my travelling-wardrobe. Avoid that tailor- 
hem so common at the bottom of your pantaloons 
which retains water and does no good to anybody. 
Waistcoats would be counted as superfluous, were 
it not for the convenience of the pockets they 
carry. Take along an old dressing-gown, if you 
want solid comfort in camp or elsewhere after 
sunset. 

Gordon Cumming recommends a wide-awake hat, 
and he is good authority on that bead. A man 
" clothed in his right mind " is a noble object ; but 
six persons out of every ten who start on a jour- 
ney wear the wrong appai-el. The writer of these 
pages has seen four individuals at once standing 



EOW TO ROUGH IT. 185 

up to their middles in a trout-stream, all adorned 
with black silk tiles, newly imported from the Hue 
St. Honore. It was a sight to make Daniel Boone 
and Izaak Walton smile in their celestial abodes. 

A light waterproof outside-coat and a thick 
pea-jacket are a proper span for a roving trip. Do 
not forget that a couple of good blankets also go 
a long way toward a traveller's paradise. 

I will not presume that an immortal being at 
this stage of the nineteenth century would make 
the mistake, when he had occasion to tuck up his 
shirt-sleeves, of turning them outw^ards, so that 
every five minutes they would be tumbling down 
with a crash of anathemas from the wearer. The 
supposition that any sane son of Adam would tuck 
up his sleeves inside out involves a suspicion, to 
say the least, that his wits had been overrated by 
a doting parent. 

" Grease and dirt are the savage's wearing- 
apparel," says the Swedish proverb. No comment 
is necessary in speaking wdth a Christian on this 
point, for cold water is one of civilization's closest 
allies. Avoid the bath, and the genius of disease 



186 HOW TO ROUGH IT. 

and crime stalks in. *' Cleanliness is next to god- 
liness," remember. 

In packing your knapsack, keep in mind that 
sixteen or twenty pounds are weight enough, till, 
by practice, you can get pluck and energy into 
your back to increase that amount. 

Roughing it has various meanings, and the 
phrase is oftentimes ludicrously mistaken by many 
individuals. A friend with whom I once trav- 
elled thought he was roughing it daily for the 
space of three weeks, because he was obliged to 
lunch on cold chicken and tm-iced Champagne, and 
when it rained he was forced to seek shelter inside 
very inelegant hotels on the road. To rough it, 
in the best sense of that term, is to lie down every 
night with the ground for a mattress, a bundle of 
fagots for a pillow, and the stars for a coverlet. 
To sleep in a tent is semi-luxury, and tainted with 
too much effeminacy to suit the ardor of a first- 
rate " Rough," Parkyns, Taylor, Cumming, Fre- 
mont, and Kane have . told us how much superior 
are two trunks of trees, rolled together for a bed, 
under the open sky, to that soft, heating appara- 



HOW TO ROUGH IT. 187 

tus called a bed in the best chamber. Every man 
to his taste, of course, but there come occasions 
in life when a man must look about him and 
arrange for himself, somehow. The traveller who 
has never slept in the woods has missed an enjoy- 
able sensation. A clump of trees makes a fine 
leafy post-bedstead, and to awake in the morning 
amid a grove of sheltering, nodding oaks is lung- 
inspiring. It was the good thought of a wanderer 
to say, " The forest is the poor man's jacket." 
Napoleon had a high opinion of the bivouac style 
of life, and on the score of health gave it the 
preference over tent-sleeping. Free circulation is 
a great blessing, albeit I think its eulogy rather 
strongly expressed by the Walden-Pondit, when 
he says, " I would rather sit on a pumpkin and 
have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet 
cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an ox- 
cart with a free circulation, than go to heaven in 
the fancy car of an excursion-train, and breathe a 
malaria all the way." The only objection to out- 
door slumber is dampness ; but it is easy to pro- 
tect one's self in wet weather from the unhealthy 
ground by boughs or india-rubber blankets. 



188 HOW TO BOUGH IT. 

'One of the great jjrecautions requisite for a 
tramp is to provide against thirst. AVant of water 
overtakes the traveller sometimes in the most 
annoying manner, and it is well to know how to 
fight off the dry fiend. Sir James Alexander 
cautions all who rough it to drink well before 
starting in the morning, and drink nothing all day 
till the halt, — and to keep the lips shut as much 
as possible. Another good authority recommends 
a pebble or leaf to be held in the mouth. Habit, 
however, does much in this case as in every other, 
and I have known a man, who had been accus- 
tomed at home to drink four tumblers of water at 
every meal, by force of will bring his necessity 
down to a pnit of liquid per day during a long 
tramp through the forest. One of the many ex- 
cellent things which Plutarch tells of Socrates is 
this noteworthy incident of his power of absti- 
nence. He says, whenever Socrates returned from 
any exercise, though he might be extremely dry, 
he refrained nevertheless from drinking till he 
had thrown away the first bucket of water he had 
drawn, that he might exercise himself to patience. 



HOW TO ROUGH IT. 189 

and accustom his appetite to wait the leisure of 
reason. 

From water to fire is a natural transition. How 
to get a blaze just when you want it puzzles the 
will hugely sometimes. Every traveller should 
provide himself with a good handy steel, proper 
flint, and unfailing tinder, because lucifers are 
liable to many accidents. Pliny recommended 
the wood of mulberry, bay-laurel, and ivy, as good 
material to be rubbed together in order to procure 
a fire ; but Pliny is behind the times, and must 
not be trusted to make rules for " our boys." Of 
course no one would omit to take lucifers on a 
tramp ; but steel, flint, and tinder are three warm 
friends that in an emergency will always come 
up to the strike. 

To find firewood is a knack, and it ought to be 
well cultivated. Do not despise bits of dry moss, 
fine grass, and slips of bark, if you come across 
them. Twenty fires are fixilures in the open air 
for one that succeeds, unless the operator knows 
his business. A novice will use matches, wood, 
wind, time, and violent language enough to burn 



190 no IV TO ROUGH IT. 

down a city, and never get any satisfaction out 
of all the expenditure ; while a knowing hand 
will, out of the stump of an old, half-rotten tree, 
bring you such magnificent, permanent heat, that 
your heart and your teakettle will sing together 
for joy over it. In making a fire, depend upon it, 
there is something more than luck, — there is 
always talent in it. I once saw Charles Lever 
(Harry Lorrequer's father) build up a towering 
blaze in a woody nook out of just nothing but 
what he scraped up from the ground, and his rare 
ability. You remember Mr. Opie the painter's 
answer to a student who asked him what he 
mixed his colors with. " Brains, sir," was the 
artist's prompt, gruff, and right reply. It takes 
brains to make a fire in a rainy night out in the 
woods ; but it can be done, — if you only know 
how to begin. I have seen a hearth made of 
logs on a deep snow sending out a cheerful glow, 
while the rain dripped and froze all about the 
merry party assembled. 

A traveller ought to be a good swimmer. There 
are plenty of watery crossings to be got over, and 



now TO ROUGH IT. 191 

often there are no means at hand but what Na- 
ture has provided in legs and arms. But one 
of the easiest things in the world to make is a 
raft. Inflatable india-rubber boats also are now 
used in every climate, and a full-sized one weighs 
only forty pounds. General Fremont and Dr. 
Livingstone have tested their excellent qualities, 
and commend them as capable of standing a 
wonderful amount of wear and tear. But a boat 
can be made out of almost anything, if one have 
the skill to put it together. A party of sailors 
whose boat had been stolen put out to sea and 
were eighteen hours afloat in a crazy craft made 
out of a large basket woven with boughs such as 
they could pick up, and covered with their canvas 
tent, the inside being plastered with clay to keep 
out as much of the water as possible. 

In fording streams, it is well, if the water be 
deep and swift, to carry heavy stones in the hands, 
in order to resist being borne away by the cur- 
rent. Fords should not be deeper than three feet 
for men, or four feet for horses. 

Among the small conveniences, a good strong 



192 now TO ROUGH IT. 



pocket-knife, a small " hard chisel," and a file 
should not be forgotten. A great deal of real 
work can be done with very few tools. One of 
Colt's rifles is a companion which should be spe- 
cially cared for, and a waterproof cover should 
always be taken to protect the lock during show- 
ers. There is one rule among hunters which 
ought always to be remembered, namely, " Look 
at the gun, but never let the gun look at you, 
or at your companions." Travellers are always 
more or less exposed to the careless handling of 
firearms, and numerous accidents occur by carry- 
ing the piece with the cock down on the nip- 
ple. Three fourths of all the gun accidents are 
owing to this cause ; for a blow on the back of 
the cock is almost sure to explode the cap, while 
a gun at half-cock is comparatively safe. 

Do not carry too many eatables on your expedi- 
tions. Dr. Kane says his party learned to modify 
and reduce their travelling-gear, and found that 
in direct proportion to its simplicity and to their 
apparent privation of articles of supposed necessity 
were their actual comfort and practical efficiency. 



HO IV TO ROUGH IT. 193 

Step by step, so long as their Arctic service con- 
tinued, they went on reducing their sledging- 
oiitfit, until at last they came to the Esquimaux 
ultimatum of simplicity, — 7-aw 7neat and a far 
hag. Salt and pepper are needful condiments. 
Nearly all the rest are out of place on a roughing 
expedition. Among the most portable kinds of 
solid food are pemmican, jerked meat, wheat flour, 
barley, peas, cheese, and biscuit. Salt meat is a 
disappointing dish, and apt to be sadly uncertain. 
Somebody once said that water had tasted of sin- 
ners ever since the flood, and salted meat some- 
times has a taint full as vivid. Twenty-eight 
ounces of real nutriment per diem for a man in 
rough work as a traveller will be all that he 
requires; if he perform severe tramping, thirty 
ounces. 

The French say, C^est la soupe qui fait le soldaf, 
and I have always found on a tramping expedi- 
tion nothing so life-restoring after fatigue and 
hunger as the portable soup now so easily ob- 
tained at places where prepared food is put up 
for travellers' uses. Spirituous liquors are no 



194 HOW TO ROUGH IT. 

help ill roughing it. On the contraiy, they in- 
vite sunstroke and various other unpleasant visit- 
ors incident to the life of a traveller. Habitual 
brandy-drinkers give out sooner than cold-water 
men, and I have seen fainting red noses by the 
score succumb to the weather, when boys addicted 
to water would crow like chanticleer through a long 
storm of sleet and snow on the freezing Alps. 

It is not well to lose your way ; but in case this 
unpleasant luck befall you, set systematically to 
work to find it. Throw terror to the idiots who 
always flutter and flounder, and so go wrong 
inevitably. Galton the Plucky says, — and he 
has as much cool wisdom to impart as a traveller 
needs, — when you make the unlively discovery 
that you are lost, ask yourself the three following 
questions : — 

1. What is the least distance that I can with 
certainty specify, within which the path, the river, 
the seashore, etc., that I wish to regain, may lie ] 

2. What is the direction, in a vague, general 
way, in which the path or river runs, or the sea- 
coast tends 1 



now TO ROUGH IT. 195 

3. When I last left the path, etc., did I turn to 
the left or to the right 1 

As regards the first, calculate deliberate!}'- how 
long you have been riding or walking, and at what 
pace, since you left your party ; subtract for stop- 
pages and well-recollected zigzags; allow a mile 
and a half per hour as the pace when you have 
been loitering on foot, and three and a half when 
you have been walking fast. Occasional running 
makes an almost inappreciable difference. A man 
is always much nearer the lost path than he is 
inclined to fear. 

As regards the second, if you recollect the third, 
and also know the course of the path within eight 
points of the compass (or one fourth of the whole 
horizon), it is a great gain ; or even if you know 
your direction within twelve points, or one third 
of the whole horizon, that knowledge is worth 
something. Do not hurry, if you get bewildered. 
Stop and think. Then arrange matters, and you 
are safe. When Napoleon was once caught in a 
fog, while riding with his staff across a shallow 
arm of the Gulf of Suez, he thovght, as usual. 



196 now TO ROUGH IT. 

His way was utterly lost, and going forward he 
found himself in deeper water. So he ordered his 
staff to ride from him in radiating lines in all 
directions, and such of them as should find shal- 
low water to shout out. If Napoleon had been 
alone on that occasion, he would have set his five 
wits to the task of finding the right way, and he 
would have found it. 

Finally, cheerfulness in large doses is the best 
medicine one can take along in his outdoor 
tramps. I once had the good luck to hear old 
Christopher North try his lungs in the open air in 
Scotland. Such laughter and such hill-shaking 
merry-heartedness I may never listen to again 
among the Lochs, but the lesson of the hour (how 
it rained that black night !) is stamped for life 
upon my remembrance. "Clap your back against 
the cliff," he shouted, " and never mind the del- 
uge ! " Christopher sleeps now under the turf he 
trod with such a gallant bearing, but few mortals 
know how to rouirh it like him ! 



AN OLD-TIME SOHOLAE, 



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AN OLD-TIME SCHOLAR. 




NE winter day, many years ago, as I was 
wandering among the narrow and least 
^^i interesting streets of Rome, I heard the 
drowsy voice of a man oozing faintly out of a 
mean-looking, half-closed apartment, which I hap- 
pened at the time to be passing. Listening for a 
moment, I discovered that I was in the vicinity of 
a small public book-sale, and, lifting the battered 
latch, stepped from the sidewalk at once into the 
squalid room. The scene which met my eye 
it is impossible to forget. The apartment was 
diminutive, ill-furnished, and filled with that un- 
wholesome odor of sour dust which comes pro- 
fusely into anaired premises after continued occu- 



200 AN OLD-TIME SCHOLAR. 

pancy. At the upper end of a long, bare, rough 
table reclined on his elbows the crumbling, half- 
starved figure of an auctioneer, a man in his last 
gradations of poverty and age. Around his bony 
neck was twisted a gray, untidy wad of something 
woollen, to keep off the damp air of the building, 
and his voice rasped out occasionally, with a husky 
chill, from the shabby enclosure coiled about his 
windpipe. Down both sides of the table, on stools 
worn by a century of bidders, sat a row of bare- 
footed monks, each clad in his peculiar dress. 
Most of the brothers were sad-eyed old men, but 
I noticed here and there among them a younger 
mendicant, evidently preparing himself, by various 
privations, to become in time as hopeless-looking 
as his more aged companions. They all held large 
snuff-boxes in their dingy fingers, from which they 
partook frequently of the titillating dust. Each 
one consulted occasionally a poorly printed cata- 
logue of the works then being offered by the slow- 
croaking auctioneer. All told, the company as- 
sembled consisted of not over twenty persons, and 
every form among the buyers, save one, wore the 



AN OLD-TIME SCHOLAR. 201 

conventual garb of the Roman Catholic priest- 
hood. Only the dull, hoarse buzz of the auction- 
eer stirred the silence of that sleepy scene, except 
when the name of a purchaser was droned out to 
match the seller's wheezy voice. I counted at 
one time four nodding heads, not to be reckoned 
antong the bidders. The somnolent atmosphere 
was too much for them, and they had no part or 
lot in the purchases ; they were far away among 
the poppies in dreamland. 

The only man without a cowl whom I noticed 
that day, sitting side by side with Capuchin and 
Carmelite, though among them, was not of them. 
Now and then he glanced slowly and thoughtfully 
up and down the table, scanning the leaden fea- 
tures of his strange associates with a deep and 
sorrowful meaning. His own countenance was 
pale with disease and suffering. A respirator, 
which he had taken off on entering the room, 
lay beside him, and his frequent cough betrayed 
the subtle destroyer's rapid advance on the worn- 
out body. At intervals the monks slyly nudged 
each other, and whispered furtively together, while 



202 AN OLD-TIME SCHOLAR. 

the wan stranger, so strikingly in contrast with 
the rest of the company, was examining his cata- 
logue. When he looked np from the uninterest- 
ing pages the monks became silent again, and 
unobservant as statues. They were, from habit, 
consummate masters of dissimulation ; and Theo- 
dore Parker never knew how closely he had been 
watched by that sinister group in the dark old 
Koman auction-room. 

Mr. Parker was evidently waiting for some 
special book to be put up, — something he was 
anxious to possess and read, perhaps, before he 
died ; so I stayed to see what he might be in pur- 
suit of, and the auctioneer was not long in coming 
to it. It proved to be a fat little quarto of the 
year 1G37, printed in Latin and clad in wrinkled 
parchment, containing the letters of that famous 
old scholar, Isaac Casaubon. The battered vol- 
ume was mildly started at two paids l)y an obese 
and not over-cleanly " father," gradually rose to 
four, and fell at last into the Yankee parson's pos- 
session for twice that sum, — a bargain unusual 
and most gratifying to the purchaser, who bore it 



AN OLD-TIME SCHOLAR. 203 

off to the top of the Pincian Hill, where we sat 
down together in a sheltered corner, and pored 
the treasure over until it was time to go home. 
From that day, through Parker's enthusiasm, the 
name of Casaubon has had especial interest for 
me ; and I have followed more than once, with 
increasing pleasure, his student career, from his 
boyhood in Geneva to his death in England. His 
" mental strength and sap," his enthusiasm for 
learning, his renunciation of ease, society, health 
even, for a life of profound and earnest pursuit 
after knowledge, combine to make his biography 
an example to all scholars, and an intrinsic addi- 
tion to the world's best reading. He was not a 
man of genius ; he was a man of perseverance, — • 
a devotee of erudition. If ever a student lived 
W'ho was inflamed with the ardor of self-education, 
who " scorned delights and lived laborious days," 
who prostrated himself before the shrine of intel- 
lectual acquirement, and made Wisdom a worship 
from his youth up, that scholar was Isaac Casau- 
bon, who " toiled and wrought and fought " for 
the bettering of his mind in those dark, inhospita- 



204 AN OLD-TIME SCHOLAR. 

ble days of the sixteenth century. Believing that 
the disease of the age in which he lived was a 
hatred of truth, he resolved with Protestant fervor, 
so far as he was able, to correct the errata of his 
recreant time. Although he only partially suc- 
ceeded, he accomplished brave and lasting work 
enough for one man's possibilities in an evil era, — 
an era hung round with clouds and thick dark- 
ness. 

I know not why it is that I feel so warm a per- 
sonal interest in people who lived far back in those 
dim years ; but I find myself not infrequently car- 
ing greatly about that hunted Casaubon family, 
who, flying for their lives from Gascony, just 
escaping in season to avoid the blazing fagot of 
a persecuting mob, arrived in Geneva about the 
year 1556. I follow with eager concern the brave- 
hearted refugees into the Valley of Dauphine, the 
undaunted Huguenot minister breaking the peril- 
ous bread of life to his exiled flock amid the 
hazards of religious controversy and extermi- 
nation. 

Pretty soon my regard for that banished house- 



AN OLD-TIME SCHOLAR. 205 



hold centres in the young k\d whose health is 
becoming endangered by constant and unresting 
study. His struggles through dismal years of 
calamity and Jesuitical defamation ; his want of 
books, and the opportunity in various other ways 
of acquiring the knowledge he so longed to possess ; 
the cruel injuries of fanatical and ferocious critics, 
— all render his career one of the most absorbing 
in the annals of heroic scholarship. No student 
was ever more persistently pinched by narrow 
means than he, and no man ever accomplished 
more steady work with so few helps. Recondite 
learning was his passion, but there were few clas- 
sical treasures open to him in those hopeless days. 
Text-books he had none, and being too deep down 
in poverty, during his youth, to own the works so 
necessary to the labor he set himself to accom- 
plish, he borrowed his tools up and down the 
German cities with a pertinacity altogether mar- 
vellous. Once when a stingy book-owner declined 
to lend him a volume he sorely needed for refer- 
ence, he kept on asking, and fairly won the treatise 
by much importunity. " Go away, Casaubon, 



20G AN OLD-TIME SCHOLAR. 

you weary me ! " cried the close old citizen, rich 
iu parchment-bound treasures, to whom Isaac had 
applied for the loan of the book. " I will not 
Uudge," replied the eager scholar, "until you hand 
over your annotated Polybius, now locked from 
sight in that oaken chest up stairs ! " And he 
got it out of the old gentleman at last, and kept 
it too, as long as he wanted to use it. 

What a list of friends was vouchsafed to the 
toiling man of letters, far back in that gloomy 
centur}^ ! Scaliger, Heinsius, Grotius, and other 
worthies of the time were in familiar relations 
with him, and were his helpful correspondents. 
When he visited England, the highest in authority 
and learning flocked about him. King James 
himself made extraordinary advances, and was 
never weary of asking questions concerning his 
studies. His Majesty and the Continental scholar 
discussed Plutarch and Tacitus together, day after 
day, and the king, " in consequence of Casaubon's 
singular learning," granted him a yearly pension 
of three hundred pounds. The monarch was insati- 
able of Isaac's conversation, and the court carriage 



AN- OLD-TIME SCHOLAR. 207 

was frequently seen rapidly hurrying with Ca- 
saubon to Hampton Court or Greenwich to meet 
his royal patron. Every Sunday the king de- 
manded his presence, and was restless until he 
appeared. Lord Bacon flattered the stranger in a 
way to give him lasting content, and other men 
of eminence in the kingdom called him their 
peer. 

It was indeed a life of strange vicissitudes and the 
sharpest contrasts. Mark Pattison of Lincoln Col- 
lege has told us the whole story of it in unsurpass- 
able words, full of zeal and instruction. Whenever 
I see Mr. Pattison's name connected as author with 
book or essay of any kind, I cannot omit the 
perusal of it, for he has never, to my observation, 
affixed that name to an unworthy production. 
His is that judgment which is never refracted or 
discolored by prejudice ; a priceless quality, and 
one not too often met with either in criticism or 
biography. To portray with graphic and impartial 
pen the career of a somewhat eccentric Huguenot 
scholar, writing and suffering in the reign of 
Henri IV., is a task surrounded by exceptional 



208 



AN OLD-TIME SCffOLAR. 



perplexities; but there is no book extant, of a 
similar character, more honestly conceived and 
more profoundly instructive, than the portraiture 
of sturdy Isaac Casaubon as depicted by the elo- 
quent Rector of Lincoln College. 




DIAMONDS AND PEAELS. 



rfX/^ 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 



^^^Jl WAS lately lounging away a Roman 
ilHIi i^oi'niiig among the gems in Castellani's 
sparkling rooms in the Via Poli, and 
one of the treasures handed out for rapturous 
examination was a diamond necklace, just finished 
for a Russian princess, at the cost of sixty thou- 
sand dollars ; then was displayed a set of pearls 
for an English lady, who must pay, before she bears 
her prize homeward, the sum of ten thousand dol- 
lars. Castellani junior, a fine, patriotic young 
fellow, who has since been banished for his liberal 
ideas of government, smiled as he read astonish- 
ment in my eyes, and proceeded forthwith to 
dazzle me still further with more gems of rarest 



212 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

beauty, till then hidden away in his strong iron 
boxes. 

Castellani, father and son, are princes among 
jewellers, and deserve to be ranked as artists of a 
superior order. They have a grand way of doing 
things, right good to look upon ; and I once saw 
a countrywoman of ours, who has written immor- 
tal words in the cause of freedom, made the re- 
cipient of a gem at their hands, which she cannot 
but prize as among the chief tributes so numer- 
ously bestowed in all parts of the Christian world 
where her feet have wandered. 

Castellani's jeweller's shop has existed in Rome 
since the year 1814. At that time all the efforts 
of Castellani the elder were directed to the imita- 
tion of the newest English and French fashions, 
and particularly to the setting of diamonds. This 
he continued till 1823. From 1823 to 1827 he 
sought aid for his art in the study of technology. 
And not in vain; for in 1826 he read, before the 
Accademia del Lincei of Rome (founded by Fede- 
rico Cesi), a paper on the chemical process of col- 
oring a giallone (yellow) in the manufacture of 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 213 

gold, in which he announced some facts in the 
action of electricity long before Delarive and 
other chemists, as noticed in the " Quarterly 
Journal of Science," December, 1828, No. 6, and 
the " Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve," 1829, 
Tom. XL, p. 84. 

At this period Etruria began to lay open the 
treasures of her art. All were struck by the 
beauty of the jewels found in the tombs; but 
Castellani was the first who thought of reprodu- 
cing some of them ; and he did it to the great 
admiration of the amateurs, foremost among 
whom may be mentioned the Duke Don Michel- 
angelo Caetani, a man of great artistic feeling, 
who aided by his counsels and his designs the re- 
naissance of Roman jewelry. 

The discovery of the celebrated tomb Regulini- 
Galassi at Cervetri was an event in jewelry. The 
articles of gold found in it (all now in the Vatican) 
were diligently studied by Castellani, when called 
upon to appraise them. Comprehending the meth- 
ods and the character of the work, he boldly 
followed tradition. 



214 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

The discoveries of Campanari of Toscanella, 
and of the Marquis Campana of Rome, gave val- 
uable aid to this new branch of art. Thus it 
went on improving ; and Castellani produced very 
expert pupils, all of them Italians. Fashion, if 
not public feeling, came to aid the renaissance, and 
others, in Rome and elsewhere, undertook similar 
work after the models of Castellani. It may be 
asserted that the triumph of the classic jewelry is 
now complete. Castellani renounced the modern 
methods of chasing and engraving, and adhered 
only to the antique fashion of overlaying with 
cords, grains, and finest threads of gold. From 
the Etruscan style he passed to the Greek, the 
Roman, the Christian. In this last he introduced 
the rough mosaics, such as were used by tlie Byz- 
antines with much effect and variety of tint and 
of design. 

The work of Castellani is dear ; but that results 
from his method of execution, and from the perfect 
finish of all the details. He does not seek for 
cheapness, but for the perfection of art : this is 
the only thing he has in view. As he is a man 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 215 

of genius, I have devoted considerable space to 
his admirable productions. 

The Talmud informs us that Noah had no other 
light in the ark than that which came from pre- 
cious stones. Why do not our modern jewellers 
take a hint from the ancient safety-boat, and 
light up accordingly 1 I dare say old Tavernier, 
that knowing French gem-trader of the seven- 
teenth century, had the art of illuminating his 
chateau at Aubonne in a way wondrous to the 
beholder. Among all the jewellers, ancient or 
modern, Jean Baptiste Tavernier seems to mc the 
most interesting character. His great knowledge 
of precious stones, his acute observation and un- 
failing judgment, stamp him as one of the supe- 
rior men of his da}^ Forty years of his life he 
passed in travelling through Turkey, Persia, and 
the East Indies, trading in gems of the richest 
and rarest lustre. A great fortune was amassed, 
and a barony in the Canton of Berne, on the Lake 
of Geneva, was purchased as no bad harbor for 
the rest of his days. There he hoped to enjoy 
the vast wealth he had so industriously acquired. 



216 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

But, alas ! stupid nephews abound everywhere ; 
and one of his, to whom he had intrusted a freight 
worth two hundred and twenty thousand hvres, 
caused him so great a loss that, at the age of 
eighty-four, he felt obliged to sail again for the 
East in order to retrieve his fortune, or at least 
repair the ill luck arising from his disastrous spec- 
ulation. He forgot, poor old man ! that youth 
and strength are necessary to fight against re- 
verses; and he died at Moscow, on his way, in 
1G89. When you visit the great Library in Paris, 
search for his " Travels," in three volumes, pub- 
lished in 1677-79, on a shelf among the quartos. 
Take them down, and spend a pleasant hour in 
looking through the pages of the enthusiastic old 
merchant-jeweller. His adventures in quest of 
diamonds and other precious commodities are well 
told ; and, although he makes the mistakes inci- 
dent to many other early travellers, he never wil- 
fully romances. He supposed he was the first 
European who had explored the mines of Gol- 
conda ; but an Englishman named Methold visited 
them as early as 1622, and found thirty thousand 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 217 

laborers working away for the rich Marcaiidar, who 
paid three hundred thousand pagodas annually to 
the king for the privilege of digging in a single 
mine. The first mine visited by Tavernier was that 
of Kaolconda, a five -days' journey from Golconda. 
The manner of trading there he thus describes : — 

" A very pretty sight is that presented every morning 
by the children of the master-miners and of other in- 
habitants of the district. The boys, the eldest of which 
is not over sixteen or the youngest under ten, assemble 
and sit under a large tree in the public square of the 
village. Each has his diamond weight in a bag hung 
on one side of his girdle, and on the other a purse con- 
taining sometimes as much as five or six hundred pago- 
das. Here they wait for such persons as have diamonds 
to sell, either from the vicinity or from any other mine. 
When a diamond is brought to them, it is immediately 
handed to the eldest boy, who is tacitly acknowledged 
as the head of this little band. By him it is carefully 
examined, and then passed to his neighbor, who, having 
also inspected it, transmits it to the next boy. The 
stone is thus passed from hand to hand, amid unbroken 
silence, until it returns to that of the eldest, who then 
asks the price and makes the bargain. If the little 



218 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

man is thought by his comrades to have given too high 
a price, he must keep the stone on his own account. 
In the evening the children take account of stock, ex- 
amine their purchases, and class them according to 
their water, size, and purity, putting on each stone the 
price they expect to get for it ; they then carry the 
stones to the masters, who have always assortments to 
complete, and the proiits are divided among the young 
traders, with this difference in favor of the head of the 
firm, that he receives one fourth per cent more than 
the others. These children are so perfectly acquainted 
with the value of all sorts of gems that if one of them, 
after buying a stone, is willing to lose one half per cent 
on it, a companion is always ready to take it." 

Master Tavernier discourses at some length on 
the ingenious methods adopted b}'^ the laborers to 
conceal diamonds which they have found, some- 
times swallowing them, and he mentions a miner 
who hid in the corner of his eye a stone of two 
carats ! Altogether, his work is one worthy to 
be turned over for its graphic pictures of gem- 
hunting two hundred years ago. 

Professor Tennant says, " One of the common 
marks of opulence and taste in all countries is 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 219 

the selection, preservation, and ornamental use 
of gems and precious stones." Diamonds, from 
the time Alexander ordered pieces of flesh to be 
thrown into the inaccessible valley of Zulmeah, 
that the vultures might bring up with them the 
precious stones which attached themselves, have 
everywhere ranked among the luxuries of a 
refined cultivation. It is the most brilliant of 
stones, and the hardest known body. Pliny says 
it is so hard a substance, that, if one should be 
laid on an anvil and struck with a hammer, look 
out for the hammer ! \^Mem. If the reader have 
a particularly fine diamond, never mind Pliny's 
story : the risk is something, and Pliny cannot 
be reached for an explanation, should his experi- 
ment fail.] By its own dust only can the dia- 
mond be cut and polished ; and its great lustre 
challenges the admiration of the world. Ordi- 
nary individuals, with nothing to distinguish 
them from the common herd, have "got dia- 
monds," and straightway became ever afterwards 
famous. An uncommon-sized brilliant, stuck into 
the front linen of a foolish fellow, will set him 



220 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

up as a marked man, and point him out as some- 
thing worth looking at. The announcement, in 
the papers of the day, that "Mademoiselle Mars 
would wear all her diamonds," never failed to 
stimulate the sale of tickets on all such occasions. 
As it may interest my readers to know what treas- 
ures an actress of 1828 possessed, I copy from 
the catalogue of her effects a few items. 

" Two rows of brilliants set en chatons, one row 
composed of forty-six brilliants, the other of forty- 
four ; eight sprigs of wheat in brilliants, composed 
of about five hundred brilliants, weighing fifty- 
seven carats ; a garland of brilliants that may be 
taken to pieces and worn as three distinct orna- 
ments, three large brilliants forming the centre 
of the principal flowers, the whole comprising 
seven hundred and nine brilliants, weighing eighty- 
five carats three-quarters ; a Sevigne mounted in 
colored gold, in the centre of which is a burnt 
topaz surrounded by diamonds weighing about 
three grains each, the drops consisting of three 
opals similarly surrounded by diamonds ; one of 
the three opals is of very large size, in shape 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 221 

ublong, with rounded corners ; the whole set in 
gold studded with rubies and pearls. 

" A paritre of opals, consisting of a necklace and 
Sevigne, two bracelets, ear-rings the studs of which 
are emeralds, comb, belt-plate set with an opal 
in the shape of a triangle \ the whole mounted 
in wrought gold, studded with small emeralds. 

"A Gothic bracelet of enamelled gold, in the 
centre a burnt topaz surrounded by three large 
brilliants ; in each link composing the bracelet 
is a square emerald; at each extremity of the 
topaz forming the centre ornament are two balls 
of burnished gold and two of wrought gold. 

" A pair of girandole ear-rings of brilliants, each 
consisting of a large stud brilliant and of three 
pear-shaped brilliants united by four small ones ; 
another pair of ear-rings composed of fourteen 
small brilliants forming a cluster of grapes, each 
stud of a single brilliant. 

" A diamond cross composed of eleven brilliants, 
the ring being also of brilliants. 

" A bracelet with a gold chain, the centre-piece 
of which is a fine opal surrounded with brilliants ; 



222 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

the opal is oblong and mounted in the Gothic 
style ; the clasp is an opal. 

" A gold bracelet, with grecqiie surrounded by 
six angel heads graven on turquoises, and a head 
of Augustus. 

"A serpent bracelet d, la Cleopafre, enamelled 
black, with a turquoise on its head. 

"A bracelet with wrought links burnished on 
a dead ground; the clasp a heart of burnished 
gold with a turquoise in the centre, graven with 
Hebrew characters. 

" A bracelet with a row of Mexican chain, and a 
gold ring set with a turquoise and fastened to the 
bracelet by a Venetian chain. 

"A ring, the hoop encircled with small dia- 
monds. 

" A ring, ci la chevaliere, set with a square em- 
erald between two pearls. 

" A gold chevalier e ring, on which is engraved 
a small head of Napoleon. 

" Two belt-buckles, Gothic style, one of bur- 
nished gold, the other set with emeralds, opals, 
and pearls. 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 223 

"A necklace of two rows coral; a small brace- 
let of engraved carnelians. 

" A comb of rose diamonds, form D 5, sur- 
monnted by a large rose surrounded by smaller 
ones, and a cinque-foil in roses, the chatons alter- 
nated, below a band of roses." 

The weight of the diamond, as every one knows, 
is estimated in carats all over the world. And 
what is a carat, pray 1 and whence its name"? It 
is of Indian origin, a hirat being a small seed that 
was used in India to weigh diamonds wdth. Four 
grains are equal to one carat, and six carats make 
one pennyweight. But there is no standard weight 
fixed for the finest diamonds. Competition alone 
among purchasers must arrange their price. The 
commercial value of gems is rarely aflected, and 
among all articles of commerce the diamond is the 
least liable to depreciation. Panics that shake 
empires and topple trade into the dust seldom 
lower the cost of this king of precious stones ; 
and there is no personal property that is so apt 
to remain unchanged in money value. 

Diamond anecdotes abound, the world over; 



224 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

but I have lately met with •two brief ones which 
ought to be preserved. 

"Carlier, a bookseller in the reign of Louis XIV., 
left, at his death, to each of his children — one a girl 
of fifteen, the other a captain in the guards — a sum 
of five hundred thousand francs, then an enormous 
fortune. Mademoiselle Carlier, young, handsome, and 
wealthy, had numerous suitors. One of these, a M. 
Tiquet, a Councillor of the Parliament, sent her on 
her fete-day a bouquet, in which the calices of the 
roses were of large diamonds. The magnificence of 
this gift gave so good an opinion of the w^ealth, taste, 
and liberality of the donor, that the lady gave him the 
preference over all his competitors. But sad was the 
disappointment that followed the bridal! The hus- 
band was rather poor than rich ; and the bouquet, 
that had cost forty-five thousand francs (nine thou- 
sand dollars), had been bought on credit, and was paid 
out of the bride's fortune." 

"The gallants of the Court of Louis XV. carried 
extravagance as far as the famous Egyptian queen. 
She melted a pearl, — they pulverized diamonds, to 
prove their insane magnificence. A lady having ex- 
pressed a desire to have the portrait of her canary 
in a ring, the last Prince de Conti requested she would 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 225 

allow him to give it to her ; she accepted, on condi- 
tion that no precious gems should be set in it. When 
the ring was brought to her, however, a dianiond cov- 
ered the painting. The lady had the brilliant taken 
out of the setting, and sent it back to the giver. The 
Prince, determined not to be gainsaid, caused the stone 
to be ground to dust, which he used to dry the ink of 
the letter he wrote to her on the subject." 

Let me mention some of the most noted dia- 
monds in the world. The largest one known, 
that of the Rajah of Matan, in Borneo, weighs 
three hundred and sixty-seven carats. It is egg- 
shaped and is of the finest water. Two large war- 
vessels, with all their guns, powder, and shot, and 
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in money, 
were once refused for it. And yet its weight is 
only about three ounces ! 

The second in size is the Orloff, or Grand Rus- 
sian, sometimes called the Moon of the Mountain, 
of one hundred and ninety-three carats. The 
Great Mogul once owned it. Then it passed by 
conquest into the possession of Nadir, the Shah 
of Persia. In 1747 he was assassinated, and all 
the crown-jewels slipped out of the dead man's 



226 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

fingers, — a common incident to mortality. What 
became of the great diamond no one at that time 
knew, till one day a chief of the Anganians walked, 
mole-footed, into the presence of a rich Armenian 
gentleman in Balsora, and proposed to sell him (no 
lisping, — not a word to betray him) a large emer- 
ald, a splendid rnby, and the great Orloff dia- 
mond. Mr. Shafrass counted out fifty thousand 
piastres for the lot; and the chief folded up his 
robes and silently departed. Ten years afterwards 
the people of Amsterdam were apprised that a 
great treasure had arrived in their city, and could 
be bought, too. Nobody there felt rich enough to 
buy the great Orloff sparkler. So the English 
and Russian governments sent bidders to compete 
for the gem. The Empress Catharine offered the 
highest sum; and her agent, the Count Orloff, 
paid for it in her name four hundred and fifty 
thousand roubles, cash down, and a grant of Rus- 
sian nobility ! The size of this diamond is that 
of a pigeon's egg, and its lustre and water are of 
the finest : its shape is not perfect. 

The Grand Tuscan is next in order, for many 



DIAMONDS AND PFARLS. 227 

years held by the Medici family. It is now owned 
by the Austi-ian Emperor, and is the pi'ide of the 
Imperial Court. It is cut as a rose, nine-sided, 
and is of a yellow tint, lessening somewhat its 
value. Its weight is one hundred and thirty-nine 
and a half carats ; and its value is estimated at 
one hundred and fifty-five thousand, six hundred 
and eighty-eight pounds. 

The most perfect, though not the largest, dia- 
mond in Europe is the Regent, which belongs to 
the Imperial diadem of France. Napoleon the 
First used to wear it in the hilt of his state sword. 
Its original weight was four hundred and ten 
carats ; but after it was cut as a brilliant (a labor 
of two years, at a cost of three thousand pounds 
sterling), it was reduced to one hundred and 
thirty-seven carats. Tt came from the mines of 
Golconda ; and the thief w^ho stole it therefrom 
sold it to the grandfather of the Earl of Chatham, 
when he was governor of a fort in the East Indies. 
Lucky Mr. Pitt pocketed one hundred and thirty- 
five thousand pounds for his treasure, the pur- 
chaser being Louis XV. This amount, it is said, 



228 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

is only half its real value. However, as it cost 
the Governor, according to his own statement, 
some years after the sale, only tw^enty thousand 
pounds, his speculation was "something hand- 
some." Pope had a fling at Pitt, in his poetical 
way, intimating a wrong with regard to the pos- 
session of the diamond ; but I believe the trans- 
action was an honest one. In the inventory of 
the crown-jewels, the Regent diamond is set down 
at twelve million francs ! 

The Star of the South comes next in point of 
celebrity. It is the largest diamond yet obtained 
from Brazil ; and it is owned by the King of Por- 
tugal. It weighed originally two hundred and fifty- 
four carats, but was trimmed down to one hundred 
and twenty -five. The grandfather of the present 
king had a hole bored in it, and liked to strut 
about on gala-days with the gem suspended around 
his neck. This magnificent jewel was found by 
three banished miners, who were seeking for gold 
during their exile. A great drought had laid dry 
the bed of a river, and there they discovered this 
lustrous wonder. Of course, on promulgating their 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 229 

great lack, their sentence was revoked innnedi- 
ately. 

The world-renowned Koh-i-noor next claims at- 
tention. A Venetian diamond-cutter (wretched, 
bungling Hortensio Borgis !) reduced the great 
Koh-i-noor from its primitive weight — nine hun- 
dred carats — to two hundred and eighty. Taver- 
nier saw this celebrated jewel two hundred years 
ago, not long after its discovery. It came into the 
possession of Queen Victoria in 1849, three thou- 
sand years, say the Eastern sages, after it belonged 
to Kama, the King of Anga ! On the IGth of July, 
1852, the Duke of Wellington superintended tlio 
commencement of the re-cutting of the famous 
gem, and for thirty-eight days the operation went 
on. Eight thousand pounds were expended in the 
cutting and polishing. When it was finished and 
ready to be restored to the royal keeping, the 
person (a celebrated jeweller) to whom the wliole 
care of the work had been intrusted allowed a 
friend to take it in his fingers for examination. 
While he was feasting his eyes over it, and turn- 
ing it to the light in order to get the full force of 



230 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

its marvellous beauty, down it slipped from his 
grasp and fell upon the gi-ound. The jeweller 
nearly fainted with alarm, and poor " Butter- 
Fingers " was completely jellified with fear. Had 
the stone struck the ground at a particular an- 
gle, it would have split in two, and been ruined 
forever. 

Innumerable anecdotes cluster about this fine 
diamond. Having passed through the hands of 
various Indian princes, violence and fraud are 
copiously mingled up with its history. I quote 
one of Madame de Barrera's stories conceruing 
it: — 

" The King of Lahore having heard that the King 
of Cabul possessed a diamond that had l)elonged to the 
Great Mogul, the largest and purest known, he invited 
the fortunate owner to his court, and there, having liim 
in his powder, demanded his diamond. The guest, how- 
ever, had provided himself against such a contingency 
with a perfect imitation of the coveted jewel. After 
some show of resistance, he reluctantly acceded to the 
wishes of his powerful host. The delight of Runjeet 
was extreme, but of short duration, — the lapidary to 
whom he gave orders to mount his new acquisition 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 231 

pioiiouiicing it to be merely a Lit of crystal. Tlie mor- 
tidcation and rage of the despot were unbounded. He 
immediately caused the palace of the King of Cabul to 
be invested, and ransacked from top to bottom. But 
for a long while all search was vain ; at last a slave be- 
trayed the secret, — the diamond was found concealed 
beneath a heap of ashes. Runjeet Singh had it set in 
an armlet, between two diamonds, each the size of a 
sparrow's egg." 

The Sliah of Persia, presented to the Emperor 
Nicholas by the Persian monarch, is a very beauti- 
ful stone, irregularly shaped. Its weight is eighty- 
six carats, and its water and lustre are superb. 

The various stories attached to the Sancy dia- 
mond, the next in point of value, would occupy 
many pages. During four centuries it has been 
accumulating romantic circumstances, until it is 
now very difficult to give its true narrative. If 
Charles the Bold, the last Duke of Burgundy, ever 
wore it suspended round his neck, he sported a 
uiagnificent jewel. If the curate of Montagny 
bought it for a crown of a soldier who picked 
it up after the defeat of Granson, not knowing its 
value, the soldier was unconsciously cheated by 



232 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 



the curate. If a citizen of Berne got it out of 
the curate's fingers for three crowns, he was a 
shrewd knave. De Barante says, that in 1492 
(Columbus was then about making land in this 
hemisphere) this diamond was sold in Lucerne for 
five thousand ducats. After that, all sorts of 
incidents are related to have befallen it. Here 
is one of them. — Henry IV. was once in a strait 
for money. The Sieur de Sancy (who gave his 
name to the gem) wished to send the monarch his 
diamond, that he might raise funds upon it from 
the Jews of Metz. A trusty servant sets off with 
it, to brave the perils of travel, by no means slight 
in those rough days, and is told, in case of danger 
from brigands, to swallow the precious trust. The 
messenger is found dead on the road, and is buried 
by peasants. De Sancy, impatient that his man 
does not arrive, seeks for his body, takes it from 
the ground where it is buried, opens it, and re- 
covers his gem ! In some way, not now known, 
Louis XV. got the diamond into his possession, 
and wore it at his coronation. Li 1789, it disap- 
peared from the crown-treasures, and no trace of 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 233 

it was discovered till 1830, when it was offered 
for sale by a merchant in Paris. Count Demi- 
doff had a lawsuit over it in 1832; and as it 
is valued at a million of francs, it was worth 
quarrelling about. 

The Nassuck Diamond, valued at thirty thou- 
sand pounds, is a magnificent jewel, nearly as 
large as a common walnut. Pure as a drop of 
dew, it ranked among the richest treasures in 
the British conquest of India. 

What has become of the great triangular Blue 
Diamond, weighing sixty-seven carats, stolen from 
the French Court at the time of the great robbery 
of the crown-jewels % Alas ! it has never been 
heard from. Three millions of francs represented 
its value ; and no one, to this day, knows its 
hiding-place. What a pleasant morning's work 
it would be to unearth this gem from its dark 
corner, where it has lain perdu so many years i 
The bells of Notre Dame should proclaim such 
good fortune to all Paris. 

But enough of these individual magnificos. 
Their beauty and rarity have attracted sufficient 



234 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

attention in their day. Yet I should Uke to 

handle a few of those Spanish splendors which 

Queen Isabel II. wore at the reception of the 

ambassadors from Morocco. That day she shone 

in diamonds alone to the amount of two million 

dollai-s ! I once saw a monarch's sword, of which 

"The jewelled hilt. 
Whose diamonds lit the passage of his blade," 

was valued at one hundred thousand dollars ! 
But one of the pleasantest of my personal re- 
membrances, connected with diamonds, is the 
picking up of a fine, lustrous gem which fell 
from 0. B.'s violin bow (the gift of the Duke 
of Devonshire), one night, after he had been 
playing his magic instrument for the special 
delight of a few friends. The tall Norwegian 
wrapped it in a bit of newspaper, when it was 
restored to him, and thrust it into his cigar- 
box! [0. B. sometimes carried his treasures in 
strange places. One day he was lamenting the 
loss of a large sum of money which he had re- 
ceived as the proceeds of a concert in New York. 
A week afterwards he found his missing? nine 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 235 

hundred dollars stuffed away in a dark corner 
of one of his violin-cases.] 

There is a very pretty diamond-story current in 
connection with the good Empress Eugenie. Ma- 
dame de Barrera relates it in this wise : — 

" When the sovereign of France marries, by virtue 
of an ancient custom kept up to the present day, the 
bride is presented by the city of Paris with a valuable 
gift. Another is also offered at the birth of the first- 
horn. 

"In 1853, when the choice of His Majesty Napoleon 
III. raised the Empress Eugenie to the throne, the city 
of Paris, rej)resented hy the Municipal Connnission, 
voted the sum of six hundred thousand francs for the 
purchase of a diamond necklace to be presented to Her 
Majesty. 

" The news caused quite a sensation among the jew- 
ellers. Each was eager to contribute his finest gems to 
form the Empress's necklace, — a necklace which was 
to make its appearance under auspices as favorable as 
tliose of the famous Qucen^s Necklace had Ijeen unpro- 
pitious. But on the 28th of January, two days after 
the vote of the Municipal Commission, all this zeal 
was disappointed; the young Empress having expressed 



236 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

a wish that the six hundred thousand francs should Ije 
used for the foundation of an educational institution 
for poor young girls of the Faubourg St. Antoine. 

" The wish has been realized, and, thanks to the be- 
neficent fairy in whose compassionate heart it had its 
origin, the diamond necklace has been metamorphosed 
into an elegant edifice, with charming gardens. Here 
a hundred and fifty young girls, at first, but now as 
many as four hundred, have been placed, and receive, 
under the management of those angels of charity called 
the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, an excellent educa- 
tion, proportioned to their station, and fitting them to 
be useful members of society. 

" The solemn opening of the Maison Eugenie-Napo- 
leon took place on the 1st of January, 1857. 

*• M. Veron, the journaliste, now deputy of the Seine, 
has given, in the ' Moniteur,' a very circumstantial ac- 
count of this establishment. From it we borrow the 
following : — 

" ' The girls admitted are usually wretchedly clad : 
on their entrance they receive a full suit of clothes. 
Almost all are pale, tliin, weak children, to whom mel- 
ancholy and suficring have imparted an old and care- 
worn expression. But, thanks to cleanliness, to whole- 
some and sufficient food, to a calm and well-regulated 
life, to the pure, healthy air they breathe, the natural 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 237 

hues and the joyousness of youth soon reanimate the 
little faces ; and with lithe, invigorated limbs and 
happy hearts, these young creatures join merrily in the 
games of their new companions. They have entered 
the institution old ; they will leave it young.' 

" The Empress Eugenie delights in visiting the insti- 
tution of the Faubourg St. Antoine. This is natural. 
Her Majesty cannot but feel pleasure in the contempla- 
tion of all she has accomplished by sacrificing a mag- 
nificent but idle ornament to the welfare of so many 
beings rescued from misery and ignorance. These four 
hundred young girls will be so many animated, happy, 
and grateful jewels, constituting for Her Majesty in the 
present, and for her memory in the future, an ever-new 
set of jewels, an immortal ornament, a truly celestial 
talisman. 

" A fresco painting represents, in a hemicycle, the 
Empress in her bridal dress, oftering to the Virgin a 
diamond necklace ; young girls are kneeling around 
her in prayer ; admiration and fervent faith are de- 
picted on their brows." 

A very large amount of the world's capital is 
represented in precious stones, and ninety per 
cent of that capital so invested is in diamonds. 
This was not always the case. Ancient million- 



238 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

uaires held their enormous jewelry-riches more in 
colored stones than is the custom now. Crystal- 
lized carbon has risen in the estimation of capital- 
ists, and crystallized clay has gone down in the 
scale of value. 

If the diamond be the hardest known substance 
in the world's jewel-box, the pearl is by no means 
its near relation in that particular. The daugh- 
ters of Stilicho slept undisturbed eleven hundred 
and eighteen years, with all their riches in sound 
condition, except the pearls that were found with 
their splendid ornaments. The other decorations 
sparkled in the light as brilliantly as ever; but 
the pearls crumbled into dust, as their owners 
had done centuries before. Eight hundred years 
before these ladies lived and wore pearls, a queen 
with " swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes " tried 
a beverage which cost, exclusive of the vinegar 
which partly composed it, the handsome little 
sum of something over eighty thousand pounds. 
Diamond and vinegar would not have mixed so 
prettily. 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 239 

Pearls are perishable beauties, exquisite in their 
perfect state, but liable to accident from the 
nature of their delicate composition. Remote 
antiquity chronicles their existence, and imme- 
morial potentates eagerly sought for them to 
adorn their persons. Pearl-fisheries in the Per- 
sian Gulf are older than the reign of Alexander ; 
and the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Coast 
of Coromandel yielded their white wonders ages 
ago. Under the Ptolemies, in the time of the 
Caliphs, the pearl-merchant flourished, grew rich, 
and went to Paradise. To-day the pearl-diver 
is grubbing under the weaves that are lapping 
the Sooloo Islands, the coast of Coromandel, and 
the shores of Algiers. In Ceylon he is busiest, 
and you may find him from the first of February 
to the middle of April risking his life in the 
perilous seas. His boat is from eight to ten tons 
burden, and without a deck. At ten o'clock at 
night, when the cannon fires, it is his signal to 
put off for the bank opposite Condatchy, which 
he will reach by daylight, if the weather be fiiir. 
Unless it is calm, he cannot follow his trade. As 



240 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

soon as light dawns, he prepares to descend. His 
diving-stone, -to keep him at the bottom, is got 
ready, and, after oftering up his devotions, he 
leaps into the water. Two minutes are consid- 
ered a long time to be submerged, but some 
divers can hold out four or five minutes. When 
his strength is exhausted, he gives a signal by 
pulling the rope, and is drawn up with his bag 
of oysters. Appalling dangers compass him about. 
Sharks watch for him as he dives, and not in- 
frequently he comes up maimed for life. It is 
recorded of a pearl-diver, that he died from over- 
exertion immediately after he reached land, hav- 
ing brought up with him a shell that contained 
a jjearl of great size and beauty. Barry Corn- 
wall has I'emembered the poor fellow^ in a song 
so full of humanity, that I quote his pearl-strung 
lyric entire. 

" Witliin the miiliiight of lier hair, 
Half hidden in its deepest deeps, 
A single, peerless, priceless pearl 
(All filmy-eyed) forever sleeps. 
Without the diamond's sparkling eyes, 
The ruby's blushes, there it lies. 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 241 

Modest as the tender dawn, 

When her purple veil 's withdrawn, 

The flower of gems, a lily cold and pale ! 

Yet what doth all avail, 

All its beauty, all its grace, 

All the honors of its place ? 

He who plucked it from its bed. 

In the far blue Indian ocean, 

Lieth, without life or motion, 

In liis earthy dwelling, —dead ! 

And his children, one by one, 

When they look upon the sun, 

Curse the toil by which he drew 

The treasure from its bed of blue. 

' Gentle Bride, no longer wear. 
In thy night-black, odorous hair, 
Sucli a spoil ! It is not fit 
That a tender soul should sit 
Under such accursed gem ! 
What need'st thou a diadem, 
Thou, within whose Eastern eyes 
Thought (a starry Genius) lies, 
Thou, whom Beauty has arrayed, 
Tlioii, whom Love and Truth have made 
Beaiitiful, in whom we trace 
Woman's softness, angel's grace, 
All we hope for, all that streams 
Upon us in our haunted dreams ? 



242 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

" sweet Lady ! cast aside, 
With a gentle, nohle pride. 
All to sin or pain allied ! 
Let the wild-eyeil conqueror wear 
The Ijloody laurel in his hair ! 
Let the black and snaky vine 
Round tlie drinker's temples twine ! 
Let the slave-begotten gold 
Weigh on bosoms hard and cold ! 
But be THOU forever known 
By thy natural light alone ! " 

One of the best judges of pearls that ever lived, 
out of the regular trade, was no less a person than 
Ceesar. He was a great connoisseur, and could 
tell at once, when he took a pearl in his hand, its 
weight and value. He gave one away worth a 
quarter of a million dollars. Servilia, the mother 
of Brutus, was the lady to whom he made the regal 
present. 

Caligula, not satisfied with building ships of 
cedar wdth sterns inlaid with gems, had a pearl 
collar made for a favorite horse ! Pliny grows 
indignant as he chronicles the luxury of this 
Emperor. 

" I have seen," says he, '' Lollia Paulina, who 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 243 

was the wife of the Emperor Cahgula, — and this 
not on the occasion of a solemn festival or cere- 
mony, but merely at a supper of ordinary be- 
trothals, — I have seen Lollia Paulina covered 
with emeralds and pearls, arranged alternately, 
so as to give each other additional brilliancy, on 
her head, neck, arms, hands, and girdle, to the 
amount of forty thousand sesterces [£336,000 ster- 
ling] the which value she was prepared to prove 
on the instant by producing the receipts. And 
these pearls came, not from the prodigal gener- 
osity of an imperial husband, but from treasures 
which had been the spoils of provinces. Marcus 
Lollius, her grandfather, was dishonored in all the 
East on accoinit of the gifts he had extorted from 
kings, disgraced by Tiberius, and obliged to poison 
himself, that his grand-daughter might exhibit her- 
self by the light of the lucernce blazing with jewels." 

Nero offered to Jupiter Capitolinus the first 
trimmings of his beard in a magnificent vase en- 
riched with the costliest pearls. 

Catherine de Medicis and Diane de Poitiers 
almost floated in pearls, their dresses being pro- 



244 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

fiisely covered with them. The wedding robe of 
Aiiiie of Cleves was a rich cloth-of-gold, thickly 
embroidered with great flowers of hirge Orient 
pearls. Poor Mary, Queen of Scots, had a won- 
derful lot of pearls among her jewels; and the 
sneaking manner in which Elizabeth got posses- 
sion of them we will leave Miss Strickland, the 
biographer of Queens, to relate. 

" If anything farther than the letters of Drury and 
Throgmorton be required to prove the confederacy be- 
tween the English Government and the Earl of Moray, 
it will only be necessary to expose the disgraceful fact 
of the traffic of Queen Mary's costly parure of pearls, 
her own personal property, which she had brought with 
her from France. A few days before she effected her 
escape from Lochleven Castle, the righteous Eegent 
sent the^e, with a choice collection of her jewels, very 
secretly to London, by his trusty agent, Sir Nicholas 
Elphinstone, who undertook to negotiate their sale, with 
the assistance of Throgmorton, to whom he was directed 
for that purpose. As these pearls were considered the 
most magniticent in Europe, Queen EUzabeth w\as 
complimented with the first offer of them. 'She saw 
them yesterday, May 2nd,' writes Bodutel La Forrest, 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 245 

tlie French ambassador at the Court of Euglaiid, 'in 
the presence of the Earls of Pembroke and Leicester, 
and pronounced them to be of unparalleled beauty.' 
He thus describes them : ' There are six cordons of 
large pearls, strung as paternosters ; but there are five- 
and-twenty separate from the rest, much finer and 
larger than those which are strung ; these are for the 
most part like black muscades. They had not been 
here UKjre than three days, when they were appraised 
by various merchants ; this Queen wishing to have 
them at the sum named by the jeweller, who could 
have made his profit by selling them again. They 
were at first shown to three or four working jewellers 
and lapidaries, by whom they were estimated at three 
thousand pounds sterling (about ten thousand crowns), 
and who offered to give that sum for them. Several 
Italian merchants came after them, who valued them 
at twelve thousand crowns, which is the price, as I am 
told, this Queen Elizabeth will take them at. There 
is a Genoese who saw them after the others, and said 
they weie worth sixteen thousand crowns ; but I think 
they will allow her to have them for twelve thousand/ 
' In the mean time,' continues he, in his letter to Cath- 
erine of Medicis, ' I have not delayed giving your 
Majesty timely notice of what was going on, though I 



246 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

doubt she will not allow them to escape her. The rest 
of the jewels are not near so valuable as the pearls. 
The only thing I have heard particulai-ly described is 
a piece of unicorn riclily carved and decorated.' Mary's 
royal mother-in-law of France, no whit more scrupu- 
lous than her good cousin of England, was eager to 
compete with the latter for the purchase of the pearls, 
knowing that they were worth nearly double the sum 
at which they had been valued in London. Some of 
them she had herself presented to Mary, and especially 
wished to recover ; but the ambassador wrote to her in 
reply, that ' he had found it impossible to accomplish 
her desire of obtaining the Queen of Scots' pearls, for, 
as he had told her from the first, they were intended 
for the gratification of the Queen of England, who had 
been allowed to purchase them at her own price, and 
they were now in her hands.' 

" Inade([uate though the sum for which her pearls 
were sold was to their real value, it assisted to turn the 
scale against their real owner. 

" In one of her letters to Elizabeth, supplicating her 
to procure some amelioration of the rigorous confine- 
ment of her captive friends, Mary alludes to her stolen 
jewels. ' I beg also,' says she, ' that you will prohibit 
the sale of the rest of my jewels, which the lebels have 
ordered in their Parliament, for you have promised 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 247 

that nothing shouhi he done in it to m}^ prejudice. I 
should be very glad, if they were in safer custod}'-, for 
they are not meat proper for traitors. Between you 
and me it would make little difference, and I should 
be rejoiced, if any of them happened to be to your 
taste, that yow would accept them from me as offerings 
of my good-will.' 

" From this frank offer it is apparent that Mary was 
not aware of the base part Elizabeth had acted, in pur- 
chasing her magnificent jiarure of j^earls of Moray for 
a third part of their value." 

One of the most famous pearls yet discovered 
(there may be shells down below that hide a finer 
specimen) is the beautiful Peregrina. It was 
fished up by a little negro boy in 1560, who 
obtained his liberty by opening an oyster. The 
modest bivalve was so small that the boy in dis- 
gust was about to pitch it back into the sea. 
But he thought better of his rash determination, 
pulled the shells asunder, and, lo ! the rarest of 
priceless pearls! [^Moral, Do not despise little 
oysters.] La Peregrina is shaped like a pear, 
and is of the size of a pigeon's eg^. It was pre- 
sented to Philip II. by the finder's master, and 



248 DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 

is still in Spain. No sum has ever determined 
its value. The King's jeweller named five hun- 
dred thousand dollars, but that paltry amount 
was scouted as ridiculously small. 

There is a Rabbinical story which aptly shows 
the high estimate of pearls in early ages, only 
one object in nature being held worthy to be 
placed above them. 

" On approaching Egypt, Abraham locked Sarah in 
a chest, that none might behold her dangerous beauty. 
But when he was come to the place of paying custom, 
the collectors said, ' Pay us the custom ' ; and he said, 
*I will pay the custom.' They said to him, 'Thou 
carriest clothes ' ; and he said, ' I will pay for clothes.' 
Then they said to him, ' Thou carriest gold ' ; and he 
answ^ered them, 'I will pay for my gold.' On this 
they further said to him, ' Surely thou bearest the 
finest silk': he replied, 'I will pay custom for the 
finest silk.' Then said they, ' Surely it must be pearls 
that thou takest with thee'; and he only answered, 
' I will pay for pearls.' Seeing that they could name 
nothing of value for which the patriarch was not will- 
ing to pay custom, they said, ' It cannot be but thou 
open the box, and let us see what is within.' So they 



DIAMONDS AND PEARLS. 249 

opened the box, and the whole land of Egypt was illu- 
mined by the lustre of Sarah's beauty, far exceeding 
even that of pearls." 

Shakespeare, who loved all things beautiful, 
and embalmed them so that their lustre could 
lose nothing at his hands, was never tired of in- 
troducing the diamond and the pearl. They were 
his favorite ornaments; and I intended to point 
out some of the splendid passages in which he 
has used them, but have room for only one 
of those priceless sentences in which he has set 
the diamond and the pearl as they were never set 
before. No kingly diadem can boast such jewels 
as glow along these lines from "King Lear" : — 

"Yon have seen 
Sunshine and rain at once : her smiles and tears 
Were like a better day : those happy smiles 
That played on lier ripe lip seem'd not to know 
What guests were in her eyes ; which parted thence. 
As pearls from diamonds dropxj d.''' 




THE AUTHOE OF "PAUL AND VIEGIinA." 



'& 




THE AUTHOR OF "PAUL AND VIRGINIA." 



HERE are certain books that are read to 
be laid aside, and there are certain other 
books that are laid aside to be read. 
No one who reads at all would care to die with- 
out having perused " The Vicar of Wakefield " 
and " Paul and Virginia." These two stories are 
sometimes bound up together for the immediate 
use of young persons, who are sure to be told 
that they cannot afford to remain long in the 
world and be ignorant of the people who are na- 
tive to this brace of attractive volumes. My first 
pilgrimage in London was to the rooms whicli 
Goldsmith had occupied, for I could not remem- 
ber the time when " The Vicar of Wakefield " was 



254 THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIAN 

not a delight to me ; and landing at Havre on my 
earliest visit to Europe, I had not been on shore a 
single hour before seeking out the house in which 
the author of "Paul and Virginia" was born, in 
the year 1737. I found the place without diffi- 
culty, having obtained direction to the locality 
from the very first person I appealed to for it in 
the street. Early in life I adopted the plan when 
in a strange place, either at home or abroad, of 
appealing for information as to street or person 
to an intelligent-looking female rather than to one 
of my own sex, and for this reason : Men are 
apt to be hurrjnng along, bent solely on their 
own affairs, and do not care to be stopped by a 
stranger and questioned as to matters unimpor- 
tant perhpps to themselves. Besides, your aver- 
age w^ell-dressed man on the sidewalk is not half 
so apt to be possessed of the requisite knowledge 
as ladies who are moving over the same pave- 
ment. Male pedestrians, nine out of ten, are 
superficial, ill-mannered, and indifferent, or not in 
the mood for conferring favor of information on 
an inquiring stranger. Women, on the contrary, 



THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIA.'' 255 

are habitually more sympathetic and inclined to 
oblige. They are certainly, as a constitutional 
characteristic, much more graciously mannered 
than men, and I am yet to receive the first gruff 
reply from a lad?/ in the street when I have 
requested answer to any question necessary for 
my convenience to be solved. The mode of 
bestowing a kindness is often of more value than 
the thing conferred. The art of being gracious 
is, to put it mildly, not exclusively possessed by 
those who go about the streets inside of hats, 
coats, and trousers. A man appealed to in the 
street tells you he does not know with a short, 
sharp report, like an unsjanpathetic revolver; a 
woman, not able to answer your question, does so 
with an apologetic smile and a beneficent tone, 
which linger in your memory sometimes like Ti- 
tian's portraits, which Hazlitt says are all sus- 
tained by sentiment, and look as if the persons 
whom he painted sat to music. 

Foreigners perhaps have more sympathy for 
strangers who need information than either Eng- 
lish or Americans, and the instructed lady who 



25G THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIA^ 

showed me the nearest way to Number 47, Rue 
de la Corderie, in Havre, seemed pleased that 
she could render me so gracious a service. Ti- 
tania's exhortatory line to the elves in the case 
of Nick Bottom, " Be kind and courteous to 
this gentleman," could not have been better car- 
ried out. The good woman insisted upon pro- 
ceeding with me to the quaint old house, although 
it was evidently not in the direction she was 
going when I met her; but the service was per- 
formed so kindl}^ I could not offer a word of pro- 
test. Leading me along the quays we threaded 
our way through the bustling streets, piled up 
with cotton -bales, sugar -hogsheads, and other 
commodities, all reminding me of the tropical 
countries which had made Havre their port of 
trade. Unw^onted cries of parrots and macaws 
filled the air, and their sparkling plumage made 
the streets resplendent wnth color. At length we 
came to the house we were in search of. 

Entering the little shop on the lower floor, the 
master of it came smiling toward me and politely 
inquired what he could do to serve me. 



THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIAN 257 

" Will Monsieur please to be seated 1 " 

" Merci ! bat 1 have no business," was my reply. 

The little perruquier looked disappointed, and 
began to display his wares, consisting of odorous 
soap, combs, brushes, and other useful articles for 
the toilet. 

" I have taken the liberty of entering the house 
in which the famous author of ' Paul and Virginia' 
was born, and of paying, as an American, the 
homage of my admiration for his genius," said I. 

" Ah ! he was indeed a grand author, and I am 
proud to do business on the very spot where he 
was born," replied the man. 

The barber and I then sat down together near 
his door, for it was an hour of the day when no 
customers were stirring, and we then and there 
compared notes as to the great merits of St, Pierre, 
whose works were ffxmiliar as tlie Prayer-Book to 
my new friend. Indeed, he had a small copy of 
" The Indian Cottage " on his shelf of perfumes, 
and he handed it down for my inspection. 

This, then, was the birthplace of a man who had 
given so much pleasure in the world, the starting- 



258 THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIA.'' 

point of a being destined to confer so lasting a 
benefit on mankind. The little barber being called 
away to wait upon a pompous and well-powdered 
gentleman who desired to have his wig put in 
" grand style " for the fete to be held next day at 
Ingouville, I had the whole doorway to myself. 
Many a time St. Pierre, when a youth, must have 
passed over this threshold. A man of acute sensi- 
bility all his life, in this narrow street he must 
have suffered some of the pangs that w^ait upon a 
temperament like his. I remember he says some- 
where in his works that a single thorn could give 
him greater pain than a hundred roses confer pleas- 
ure ; and I also recalled how deeply he was wounded 
by envious and malicious contemporaries, and how 
frequently disease lay in w^ait for him ; how at one 
time he was seized with a strange malady, flashes 
of fire resembling lightning dancing before his eyes, 
every object appearing double and moving, — like 
(Edipus, seeing two suns in heaven. For years he 
was a man " perplexed in the extreme," and what 
he endured people born without nerves can never 
comprehend. 



THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINTA^ 259 

The complete works of St. Pierre fill twelve oc- 
tavo volumes ; but his fame will always rest on that 
tender little idyl, so full of romantic interest, pub- 
lished in 1788, which was written in a garret on the 
Rue St. Etienne-du-Mont in Paris. A touching in- 
cident connected with the manuscript of "Paul and 
Virginia" is rec(^rded by L. Aime Martin. Ma- 
dame Necker invited St. Pierre to bring his new" 
story into her salon, and read it before publication 
to a company of distinguished and enlightened au- 
ditors. She promised that the judges she would 
convene to hear him were among those she esteemed 
the most worthy. Monsieur Necker himself, as a 
distinguished favor, would be at home on the occa- 
sion. Buffon, the Abbe Galiani, Monsieur and Ma- 
dame Germain, were among the tribunal when St. 
Pierre appeared and sat down with the manuscript 
of " Paul and Virginia" open before him. At first 
he was heard in profound silence : he went on, and 
the attention grew languid, the august assembly 
began to whisper, to yawn, and then listen no longer. 
Monsieur de BufFon pulled out his watch and called 
for his horses ; those sitting near the door noise- 



260 THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGIN I Ar 

lesslj slipped out; one of the company was seen in 
profound slumber; some of the ladies wept, but 
Monsieur Necker jeered at them, and they, ashamed 
of their tears, dared not confess how much inter- 
ested they had been. When the reading w^as 
finished, not one word of praise followed it. Ma- 
dame Necker criticised the conversations in the 
book, and spoke of the tedious and commonplace 
action in the story. A shower of iced water 
seemed to fixll on poor St. Pierre, who retired from 
the room in a state of overwhelming depression. 
He felt as if a sentence of death had been pro- 
nounced on his story, and that " Paul and Vir- 
ginia" was unworthy to appear before the public 
eye. 

But a man of genius — the painter, Joseph 
Vernet, who had not been present at the reading 
at Madame Necker's — dropped in one morning 
on St. Pierre in his garret, and revived his almost 
sinking courage. " Perhaps Monsieur will read 
his new story to his friend Vernet 1 " So the au- 
thor took up his manuscript, which since the fatal 
day had been cast aside, and began to read. As 



THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIAN' 2G1 

Vernet listened the charm fell upon him, and at 
every page he uttered an exclamation of delight. 
Soon he ceased to praise ; he only wept. When 
St. Pierre reached that part of the book 'which 
Madame Necker had found so much ftxult with, 
the author proposed to omit that portion of the 
narrative ; but Vernet would not consent to omit 
anything. When the book was finished, Vernet 
threw his arms about St. Pierre, and told him he 
had produced a chef-cVoeuvre. "My friend," ex- 
claimed Vernet, "you are a great painter, and I 
dare to promise you a splendid reputation!" Fift}" 
editions, that year " Paul and Virginia " was pub- 
lished, attested the wise judgment of Joseph Ver- 
net. 

Another striking incident in the career of the 
author w^as his appearance, in the year 1798, at a 
meeting of the Institute. He had been charged 
to make a report upon the prize question, " What 
institutions are the most proper to form a basis 
for public morals'?" A strong sentiment of relig- 
ion was a marked characteristic in the life of St. 
Pierre, and he was anxious to brino; men back to 



2G2 THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIAN 

views of justice and consolation. On this occasion 
he seemed inspired, and bis essay breathed out all 
the sweetness of the gospel. His colleagues at 
that time were a band of mercenary scholars, who 
were only anxious to retrench divinity to their 
own system of revolutionary action. It was in 
the presence of such an auditory that St. Pierre 
rose to read his report, and at the very first enun- 
ciation of his religious principles a cry of fury was 
directed against him from every part of the hall. 
Some jesting voices asked him when he had seen 
God, and what was his form. Derision and con- 
tempt were followed by outrage. Some insulted 
his age, charging him with dotage and supersti- 
tion ; some threatened to expel him from the As- 
sembly, where he had made himself ridiculous ; 
and several blaspheming members challenged him 
to a duel, in order to prove by crossing of weapons 
.that there was no God. The ideologist, Cabanis, 
stood over him in a violent rage, crying out, " I 
swear there is no God, and I demand that his 
name never again be pronounced within these 
walls ! " St. Pierre would hear no more, and, as 



THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIA:' 263 

he left the hall, turned calmly to Cabaiiis and said, 
"Your master, Mirabeau, would have blushed at 
the words you have just uttered," Hastening to 
the library, St. Pierre committed to paper some 
thoughts called up by the scene he had just wit- 
nessed. It is said to be a compound of sweetness 
and strength, and a model of the most lofty elo- 
quence. Prayer, conciliation, reconciliation, were 
his only replies to the insults that had been 
heaped upon him. He would not wrong himself 
by trying to prove that there was a God, but he 
recalled the ephemeral laws under which the peo- 
ple were then living, and compared them with the 
eternal laws of the Almighty. This document is 
said to be almost superior to anything else St. 
Pierre has ever written. 

St. Pierre was an enthusiast for Nature, and we 
can never be grateful enough to the men and 
women who, like him, have written books to make 
us more in love with her beauties and harmonies, 
who have themselves been transported with the 
glories of her divine works, — those careful ob- 
servers and students who have the power to 



204 THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINLV 

bring, even in winter months, the robins singing 
again about our doors, as in the summer time. 
For my own part, I can never be sufficiently 
thankful for the writings of Wordsworth, Thom- 
son, Cowper, Bryant, Thoreau, Kingsley, and 
those other high-priests of Nature, who have 
spoken to us, either in their loftiest or simplest 
moods, of what is so elevating and instructive. 
It is a good thing to be alive while John Bur- 
roughs is bringing out, at pleasant intervals, his 
delightful volumes, so full of grace and accurate 
suggestion ; and I always wish to take off my hat 
in homage, when I face him in the street, to 
George B. Emerson for those two noble volumes 
which can make the forests of Massachusetts our 
neighbors and companions every day in the year. 
St. Pierre's "Studies of Nature" is full of in- 
terest, discursive though it is apt to be in many 
of its chapters. In one of the passages of this 
work he expressed a wish that he might find a 
suitable companion for life. Many letters making 
overtures for the situation poured in upon him. 
He finally married a beautiful and accomplished 



THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINFAy 265 

daughter of the celebrated printer Didot, and two 
of their children were named Paul and Virginia. 
Some time after her death he espoused in second 
marriage a young girl of noble family named De 
Pellepore, with whom he lived in conjugal felicity 
to the end of his career. The disparity of their 
ages was no bar to their happiness ; and the lady 
is described by those who knew her as a model 
wife and most careful guardian of his children. 

St. Pierre died in the month of January, 1814, 
at the age of seventy-seven. His last years were 
filled with tranquillity, and were as happy as his 
youthful ones had been sad and restless. He was 
a beautiful old man in personal appearance, and 
his long silver hair, flowing carelessly over his 
well-knit shoulders, gave him prominence, as an 
individual, even in the crowded streets of Paris. 
The common people knew and loved his venerable 
form, and as they passed saluted with reverence 
the author of " Paul and Virginia." 

I have in my possession an autograph letter 
written by him to Rembrandt Peale in the year 
1809. Peale, when in France, painted a portrait 



266 THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIA'' 

of the author, and when the picture was fiuished 
asked St. Pierre to give him in his own writing a 
brief memoir of his hfe. This request the vener- 
able old man complied with in the form of an 
epistle, and I here print from the original the 
brief biography, in all its imperfect English; for 
the ej:)istle was written^, not in French, but in the 
language Kembrandt Peale was born to speak and 
read, — a compliment to the artist not to be over- 
looked. 

"Amiable Philadelphe, the Rembrandt of America:— 
" You attach too much importance to my mem- 
ory. Your father has written to thank me for 
having sitten to you. On your part you wisli to 
add to the immortality which your pencil has 
given me in the New World, some notice of my 
life in the Old — doubtless to make compensation. 
And to give more weight to your request, it is 
made thro' your Consul-general, Mr. Warden. I 
shall endeavor to satisfy you in a few words. 

"I was born in 1737 at Havre de Grace en 
Normandy. The eldest of 3 brothers and 2 
sisters (from whom there remains only a little 



THE A U TH OR OF " PA UL A ND VI R GIN /A . " 267 

nephew,) my parents gave me what is called in 
Europe, a good Education — at 12 years, disgusted 
with study, and profiting by the friendship of an 
Uncle who Commanded a Vessel of Commerce, I 
made a Voyage to Martinique, but returned still 
more discontented with my relation, the sea, and 
the Island, where I had nearly died with the Yel- 
low fever, than I had been with my Pedagogue 
and his College. 

" On my return I recommenced my studies ; my 
father sending me successively to Gisors, and to 
Rouen with the Jesuits, where I acquired a taste 
for letters, which I completed at the University 
of Caen. 

"There yet was wanting some business which 
should insure me a fortune for the future ; I was 
sent to Paris to the school of Bridges and Cause- 
ways, where I learnt to draw plans and the Math- 
ematics, — from there I entered into a Corps of En- 
gineers of Camps and Armies — I formed a Com- 
pany and the year following was sent to Malta, 
then threatened with Invasion by the Turks. The 
Turks came not, but I had a considerable quarrel 



2G8 THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIA:' 

with the Engineers in Ordinary, in consequence of 
not being of their Corps. It did me honor, but I 
lost my place. 

"I resolved then to pass into foreign service — 
sold the little I had and embarked for Holland 
with the intention of passing into Portugal, on the 
eve of a War with Spahi. But General Piquebourg, 
who was to command the Portuguese troops, had 
set off 3 days before. A new war broke out in 
the North, the Emperor of Russia, Peter the 3, 
wished to possess Holstein and was to begin by 
attacking Lubeck. That city was commanded by 
one of my compatriots, the Chevalier de Chasot — 
I offered him my service as engineer, and I re- 
mained with him 2 months, waiting from day to 
day the a'^rival of the Russians, when we learned 
that their Emperor was dethroned. His wife, 
Catharine 2, desirous of restoring the liberal Arts, 
which her husband hated, had offered to Mr. To- 
relli, Father-in-law of the Ch"" de Chasot, to be 
Director of the Academy of Painting at St. Peters- 
burg. I resolved to accompany him — We em- 
barked for Cronstad the P* of Sept. and arrived 



THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIAN 269 

at St. Petersburg near the end of the month. 
There we learnt that the Empress was at Moscow, 
which rendered my letters of recommendation 
useless, untill the month of January, when I made 
that Journey — The Grand Master of Artillery 
received me well and I entered as Lieutenant 
Engineer in the Corps of Genius ; I should prob- 
ably have finished my days in that country, if 
winters of 6 months duration, and manners not less 
rude, had not injured my health ; so that, after a 
year and a half of service, I took leave. I returned 
to France by the way of Poland, which country 
being then divided by civil wars, I was desirous 
of doing something for the advantage of my Coun- 
try, and therefore joined the party protected by 
France and commanded by Prince Rdzivil, and 
was made Prisoner by the Russian party whose 
service I had just quitted — I was happy to pro- 
cure his esteem even in my Prison — after 9 days 
I was released and permitted to return to France 
or to reside in Varsovie — Here I passed 3 months 
during the (fetes) festivals and thence took my 
route by Dresden, situated in a charming Country, 



270 THE AUTHOR OF '' PAUL AND VIRGINIAN 

but the half of whose houses were prostrate by a 
series of Bombardments by the King of Prussia. 
Their situation could be relieved onl}^ by the 
strictest economy, and having reformed the greater 
part of the Army, there were no places to be ob- 
tained. From Dresden I went to Berlin, curious 
to compare the voluptuous Saxons with the war- 
like Prussians — Berlin, and especially Potsdam, 
appeared to me like magnificent Barracks. I saw 
nothing in the Streets but Soldiers, and Priests at 
the Windows. The King offered me a place but 
I thanked him, the compensation which was at- 
tached to the office of Engineer did not afford 
wherewith to live on. At last I visited Vienna, 
but the pride of its inhabitants and especially of 
its nobility determined me to depart almost as 
soon as I had arrived. I returned to Paris where 
I found an opportunity of embarking for the Isle 
of France. It was intended to establish a French 
Colon}' at Madegascar. I was named Engineer of 
Fort Dauphin — but happily I was detained at 
the Isle of France by disunion among the Chiefs. 
The one intended for ^Madagascar was recalled at 



THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIA:' 271 

tho end of some months, having lost almost all his 
men by a series of intemperance in an unknown 
Climate. 

'' I remained 2 years on the Isle of France 
much occupied with the duties of my service — I 
should have been happy there but all was in com- 
bustion — the intendant and the governor, the 
inhabitants and the pailitary, the private persecu- 
tions of the Engineers in Ordinary, who in me be- 
held an officer not of their Corps, my small pay 
as Captain, received in paper money, which lost 
100 per cent; and more than I can describe 
the deplorable condition of the Unhappy Blacks, 
the continual prospect of the hardships of their 
race, threw me into a profound melancholy. I 
solicited my return to France and obtained it. I 
depended on the credit of an Ambassador by whom 
I was sent to that island — he had promised to 
attach me to his fortunes — I sent him some pre- 
cious curiosities acquired at my own expense and 
from the generosit}^ of some friends ; which he 
accepted and offered me nothing more than an 
opportunity of returning as I went. 



272 THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIA.'' 

" I now resolved no longer to depend on others. 
I was satisfied that Providence reigned over all Na- 
ture, and that Mankind shared in the general con- 
cern, notwithstanding their Disorders. I therefore 
determined to dig my own land for water, and not 
depend on my Neighbors. I again took up my 
Pen altho' I had already made an unsuccessful 
effort. On my return from my Journeys in the 
North, I had written a large Memoir on the sub- 
ject of Holland, Prussia, Poland, and Russia, 
which I had overrun, and sent it to the Minister 
of foreign affairs, but it produced no effect — I, 
however, predicted the partition of Poland by the 
3 neighbouring powers. The next time I resolved 
to make the public my judges — I wrote my voy- 
age to the Isle of France and printed it without 
my name. It procured me some praises from the 
journalists, but it made me enemies at A^ersailles 
— they could not pardon my having published the 
disorders of the Colony and deploring the fate of 
the unhappy blacks. 

" I was not discouraged — I extended my views 
and at the end of some years retreat, published 



THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIA:' 273 

the 3 first volumes of my studies of Nature with 
my name and my surnames. I there attacked all 
kinds of errors and abuses and I foretold an ap- 
proaching Revolution if the remedy for them was 
not hastened. This Work had the best success, 
passing thro' 5 successive Editions, before which 
time I had added two other volumes. This Work 
made my circumstances easy, and but for false 
copies, would have made my fortune. During 
the first Editions, I received several Pensions from 
the Court without having solicited them — Louis 
16 himself named me Intendant of the Garden of 
Plants and the Museum of Natural History. I 
married and had several children. 

" I began to be happy when the Revolution, 
which I predicted, arrived. I lost my place, 
my pensions, and alm'ost all my means. 

"Finally the star of our illustrious Emperor, 
Bonaparte, has dissipated all those clouds. He 
has rebuilt part of my fortune by several Pen- 
sions, to which he added the Cross of honour. 
His brother Joseph, King of Spain, put the finish 
to it by a pension of 6 thousand Francs. I owe 



274 THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIA.'' 

these unsolicited favours entirely to the natural 
beneficence of these two Princes. 

" I am equally happy on the side of Nature. I 
have two amiable children ; my daughtor Virginie 
aged 14 years educated at Ecouen by order of the 
Emperor — and my son Paul, 12 years old, who 
studies in my neighbourhood. I early lost their 
mother, but I found in a second wife, a rare 
woman who has raised them from infancy and who 
takes care of my old age with equal affection. I 
am 72 years old and enjoy health without Infirm- 
ity. Philosophy and the Muses have always their 
charms for me. 

" Two years ago, I published a Drama on the 
death of Socrates, to which I added several small 
pieces — at present I am employed on a long work 
which I began many years since — providence 
having favoured me with every means. I have a 
commodious and agreeable Hermitage, 7 leagues 
from Paris on the borders of the Oise. I there 
spend, in perfect libertj^ with a part of my famil}^ 
the half of every month in fine weather. Thus 
my vessel, so long beat about by the tempests, 



THE AUTHOR OF ''PAUL AND VIRGINIAN 275 

proceeds in peace, with favourable winds towards 
the port of hfe. Before the anchor must be 
tlirovvn forever, I try to crown the Stern wdth 
some fresh flowers. 

" Wise Americans, I have often wished I could 
have happily cultivated a little corner of your vast 
I'orests and should have been doubtless unknown 
to you — But if I have, in my rambles thro' the 
World, merited the monument of Friendship which 
you have erected to me in your Gallery, I shall 
bless all the evils I have suffered. 

" Accept the sentiments of my Gratitude. 

"Jacques Henri Bernardin de Saint Pierre. 
" Paris, tlie 28 August, 1809." 




IF I WEKE A EOT AGAIN, 



W^ 




IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN". 

A PLAIN TALK WITH MY NEPHEWS. 



ET me tell yon, my dear lads, some of 
the things I would do if I were a boy 
again, — some of the too-often neglected 
acts I would strive to accomplish if it were in my 
power to begin all over anew. 

This paper was written expressly for yon young 
follows wdio are beginning to think for yourselves, 
and are not averse to hearing what an old boy, 
who loves you, has to say to his younger fellow- 
students. 

When we are no longer young we look back and 
see where we might have done better and learned 
more, and the things we have neglected rise up 



280 IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 

and mortify us every day of our lives. May I enu- 
merate some of the important matters, large and 
small, that, if I were a boy again, I would be more 
particular about ^ 

I think I would learn to use my left hand just 
as freely as my right one, so that, if anything 
happened to lame either of them, the other would 
be all ready to write and " handle things," just as 
if nothing had occurred. There is no reason in 
the world why both hands should not be educated 
alike. A little practice would soon render one set 
of fingers just as expert as the other ; and T have 
known people who never thought, when a thing 
was to be done, which particular hand ought to 
do it, but the hand nearest the object took hold 
of it and did the office desii'ed. 

I would accustom myself to go about in the 
dark, and not be obliged to have a lamp or candle 
on every occasion. Too many of us arc slaves to 
the daylight, and decline to move forward an inch 
unless everything is visible. One of the most 
cheerful persons I ever knew was a blind old man, 



IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. ■ 281 



who had lost his sight by an accident at sea dur- 
ing his early manhood. He went everywhere, and 
could find things more easily than I could. When 
his wife wanted a spool of cotton, or a pair of scis- 
sors from up stairs, the gallant old gentleman went 
without saying a word, and brought it. He never 
asked any one to reach him this or that object, 
but seemed to have the instinct of knowing just 
where it was and how to get at it. 

Surprised at his power of finding things, I asked 
him one day for an explanation ; and he told me 
that, when he was a boy on board a vessel, it oc- 
curred to him that he might some time or other 
be deprived of sight, and he resolved to begin 
early in life to rely more on a sense of feeling than 
he had ever done before. And so he used to wan- 
der, by way of practice, all over the ship in black 
midnight, going down below, and climbing around 
anywhere and everywhere, that he might, in case 
of blindness, not become wholly helpless and of no 
account in the world. In this way he had edu- 
cated himself to do without eyes when it became 
his lot to live a sightless man. 



282 IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 

I would learn the art of using tools of various 
sorts. I think I would insist on learning some 
trade, even if I knew there would be no occasion 
to follow it when I grew up. 

What a pleasure it is in after-life to be able to 
make something, as the saying is I — to construct a 
neat box to hold one's pen and paper ; or a pretty 
cabinet for a sister's library; or to frame a favorite 
engraving for a Christmas present to a dear, kind 
mother. AYliat a loss not to know how to mend a 
chair that refuses to stand up strong only because 
it needs a few tacks and a bit of leather here and 
there ! Some of us cannot even drive a nail 
straight ; and, should we attempt to saw off an 
obtrusive piece of wood, ten to one we should lose 
a finger in the operation. 

It is a pleasant relaxation from books and study 
to work an hour every day in a tool-shop ; and my 
friend, the learned and lovable Professor Oliver 
Wendell Holmes, finds such a comfort in " mend- 
ing things," when his active brain needs repose, 
that he sometimes breaks a piece of furniture on 
purpose that he may have the relief of putting it 



IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 283 

together aguin much better than it was before. 
He is as good a mechanic as he is a poet ; bat 
there is nothing mechanical about his poetry, as 
you all know who have read his delightful pieces. 
An Eijglish author of great repute said to me not 
long ago, " Professor Holmes is writing the best 
English of our time." And I could not help add- 
ing, "Yes, and inventing the best stereoscopes, 
too ! " 

I think I would ask permission, if I had hap- 
pened to be born in a city, to have the opportu- 
nity of passing all my vacations in the country, 
that I might learn the names of trees and flowers 
and birds. We are, as a people, sadly ignorant 
of all accurate rural knowledge. We guess at 
many country things, but we are certain of very 
few. 

It is inexcusable in a grown-up person, like my 
amiable neighbor Simpkins, who lives from May to 
November on a farm of sixty acres in a beautiful 
wooded country, not to know a maple from a beech, 
or a bobolink from a cat-bird. He once handed 



284 IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 

me a bunch of pansies, and called them violets, 
and on another occasion he mistook sweet peas for 
geraniums. 

What right has a human being, while the air is 
full of bird-music, to be wholly ignorant of the 
performer's name 1 When we go to the opera, we 
are fully posted up with regard to all the principal 
singers, and why should we know nothing of the 
owners of voices that far transcend the vocal 
powers of Jenny Lind and Christine Nilsson"? 

A boy ought also to be at home in a barn, and 
learn how to harness a horse, tinker up a wagon, 
feed the animals, and do a hundred useful things, 
the experience of which may be of special service 
to him in after-life as an explorer or a traveller, 
when nnlooked-for emergencies befall him. I have 
seen an ex-President of the United States, when 
an old man, descend from his carriage, and re- 
arrange buckles and straps about his horses when 
an accident occurred, while the clumsj^ coachman 
stood by in a kind of hopeless inactivity, not 
knowing the best thing to be done. The ex-Presi- 
dent told me he had learned about such matters 



IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 285 

on a farm in bis boyhood, and so be was never at 
loss for remedies on tlie road when bis carriage 
broke down. 

If I were a boy again, I would learn bow to 
row a boat and bandle a sail, and, above all, bow- 
to become proof against sea-sickness. I wotdd 
conquer that malady before I grew to be fifteen 
years old. It can be done, and ought to be done 
in youth, for all of us are more or less inclined to 
visit foreign countries, either in the way of busi- 
ness or mental improvement, to say nothing of 
pleasure. Fight the sea-sick malady long enough, 
and it can be conquered at a very early age. 

Charles Dickens, seeing how ill his first voyage 
to America made him, resolved after he got back 
to England to go into a regular battle with the 
winds and waves, and never left off crossing the 
British Channel, between Dover and Calais, in 
severe weather, until he was victor over his own 
stomach, and could sail securely after that in 
storms that kept the ravens in their nests. 
*' Where there 's a will there 's a way," even out 



28G IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 

of ocean troubles ; but it is well to begin early 
to assert supremacy over salt-water difficulties. 
" When Csesar undertook a thing," says his biog- 
rapher, " his bodi/ was no obstacle." 

Of course every youug person nowadays, male 
or female, learns to swim, and so no advice on 
that score need be proftered ; but if I were a boy 
affiiin I would learn to float half a dav, if neces- 
sary, in as rough a bit of water as I could find 
on our beautiful coast. A boy of fifteen who 
cannot keep his head and legs all right in a stiff 
sea ought to — try until he can. No lad in these 
days ought to drown, — if he can help it ! 

I would keep " better hours," if I were a boy 
ao'ain ; that is, I would go to bed earlier than 
most boys do. Nothing gives more mental and 
bodily vigor than sound rest when properly applied. 
Sleep is our great replenisher, and if we neglect 
to take it naturally in childhood, all the worse 
for us when we grow up. If we go to bed early, 
we ripen ; if we sit up late, we decay, and sooner 
or later wc contract a disease called msomnia, 



IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 287 

allowing it to be permanently fixed upon us ; and 
then we begin to decay, oven in youth. Lata 
hours are shadows from the grave. 

If I were a boy again, I would have a blank- 
book in which I could record, before going to bed, 
e\QYj day's events just as they happened to me 
personally. If I began by writing only two lines 
a day in my diary, I would start my little book, 
and faithfully put down what happened to inter- 
est me. 

On its pages I w^ould note dow^i the habits of 
birds and animals as I saw them, and if the horse 
fell ill, down should go his malady in my book, 
and what cured him should go there too. If the 
cat or the dog showed any peculiar traits, they 
should all be chronicled in my diary, and nothing 
worth recording should escape me. 

There are hundreds of things I would correct in 
my life if I were a boy again, and among them is 
this especial one : I would be more careful of my 
teeth. Seeing since I have grown up how much 
suftering is induced by the bad habit of constantly 



288 IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 

eating candies and other sweet nuisances, I would 
shut my mouth to all allurements of that sort. 
Very hot and very cold substances I would studi- 
ously avoid. 

Toothache in our country is one of the national 
crimes. Too many people we meet have swelled 
faces. The dentist thrives here as he does in no 
other land on this planet, and it is because we 
begin to spoil our teeth at the age of five or six 
years. A child, eight years old, asked me not 
long ago if I could recommend him to a dentist 
" who did n't hurt " ! I pitied him, but I was un- 
acquainted with such an artist. They all hurt, 
and they cannot help it, poor, hard-working gen- 
tlemen, charging, as they do, like Chester. 

I would have no dealings with tobacco, in any 
form, if I were a boy again. My friend Pipes tells 
me he is such a martyr to cigar-boxes that his life 
is a burden. The habit of smoking has become 
such a tyrant over him that he carries a tobacco 
bowsprit at his damp, discolored lips every hour 
of the day, and he begs me to warn all the boys 



IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 289 

of my acquaintance, and say to them emphatically, 
" Don't learn to smoke ! " He tells me, sadly, that 
his head is sometimes in such a dizzy whirl, and 
his brain so foul from long habits of smoking he 
cannot break off, that he is compelled to forego 
much that is pleasant in existence, and live a to- 
bacco-tortured life from year to year. Poor Pipes! 
he is a sad warning i^o young fellows who are just 
learning to use the dirty, unmannerly weed. 

As I look back to my school-days I can remem- 
ber so many failures through not understanding 
how to avoid them, that I feel compelled to have 
this plain talk all round with you. I take it for 
granted that I am writing for those sensible lads 
who mean to have their minds keep the best com- 
pany possible, and never suffer them to go sneak- 
ing about for inferiority in anything. To be young 
is a great advantage, and now is the golden time 
to store away treasures for the future. I never 
knew a youth yet who would be willing to say, 
" I don't mean to get understanding ; I don't wish 
to know much of anything ; I have no desire to 



290 IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 

compass to-day more and better things than I 
knew yesterday ; I prefer, when I grow up, to be 
an ignorant man, a mere passive wheel in the 
great machine of the universe." The richest ras- 
cal that ever lived never started with the idea in 
hoyhood that he would repudiate morals, make 
money, and avoid ideas ! 

One of the most common of all laments is this 
one, and I have heard it hundreds of times from 
grayheaded men in every walk of life, " 0, that 
my lost youth could come back to me, and I could 
have again the chance for improvement I once 
had ! " What "lucky fellows " you are, to be sui'e, 
with the privilege of being about twelve or fifteen 
years old ! still keeping within your own control 
those priceless opportunities when the portals of 
knowledge are standing w^ide open and inviting 
you in, and not one adverse spirit daring to hold 
you back. Don't I wish I could be a boy again ! 
We, who are swiftl}'- stepping westward towards 
the setting sun, cannot help crying out to you, 
who are still in the Eastern quarter of life, what 



IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 291 

Horace Mann used to sound in our ears when we 
were as young as you are, " Orient yourselves ! " 

What we sow in youth we reap in age. The 
seed of the thistle always produces the thistle. 
The possibilities that wait upon you who are yet 
in the spring-time of existence, who are yet hold- 
ing in your own two hands the precious gift of 
time, cannot be estimated. Do not forget that a 
useless life is an early death ! 

I thank Mr. Longfellow for having written the 

following lines. When he read them to me I 

thanked him heartily, and now I do it again, 

as I quote them for you to commit to memory 

from these pages ; — - 

" How beautiful is youtli ! liow bright it gleams 
With its illusions, aspirations, dreams ! 
Book of beginnings, story without end, 
(Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend ! ) 
Aladdin's lamp, and Fortunatus' purse. 
That holds the treasures of the universe ! 
All possibilities are in its hands. 
No danger daunts it, and no foe withstands : 
Tn its sublime audacity of faith, 
'Be thou removed ! ' it to the mountain saith. 
And with ambitious feet, secure and proud, 
Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud ! " 



292 IF r WERE A BOY AGAIN 

I wonder if any of yon, my young friends, ever 
happened to read of a poor, unhappy old man who 
stood one New Year's night at the window of his 
dwelling and thought over all the errors of his 
youth, what he had neglected to do of good, and 
what he had committed of evil ; how his hosom 
w^as filled with remorse, how his desolate soul was 
wrung as he reflected on the past follies of a long 
life. The days when he was strong and active 
wandered about him like ghosts. It was too late 
to retrieve his lost youth. The grave was waiting 
for him, and with unspeakable grief he bethought 
him of the time spent in idleness, of the left-hand 
road he had chosen which had led him into ruin- 
ous follies and years of slothfulness. Then he re- 
called the names of his early companions who had 
selected the right-hand path, and were now happy 
and content in their declining days, having lived 
the lives of virtuous, studious men, doing the best 
they were able in the world. Then he cried to his 
dead father, who had warned him when he was a 
lad to follow the good and shun the evil pathwaj's 
of existence, "0 father, give me back my lost 



IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 293 

youth, that I may live a different life from the 
one I have so long pursued ! " But it was too late 
now to make moan. His father and his youth had 
gone together. There the poor bewildered crea- 
ture stands, blinded with tears, but still beseech- 
ing Heaven to give him back his youth once more. 
Few spectacles are more terrible to contemplate 
than the broken-down figure of that weeping old 
man, lamenting that he cannot be young again, 
for then he would lead a life so different from the 
one he had lived. 

But what a thrill of pleasure follows the sad 
picture we have been contemplating when we are 
told it was only a fearful dream that a certain 
young man was passing through, a vision only of 
possible degradation, and that Heaven had taken 
this method of counselling the youth to turn aside 
from the allurements that might beset his path, 
and thus be spared the undying remorse that 
would surely take possession of him when he grew 
to be a man, if he gave way to self-indulgence and 
those wandering idle ways that lead to error, and 
oftentimes to vice and crime. Tlie misery of a 



294 IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 

life to be avoided was thus prefigured, and the 
young man awoke to thank Heaven it was only a 
dream, and resolve so to spend God's great gift 
of time that no horror, such as he had suffered 
that night in sleep, should ever arise to haunt his 
waking hours. 

If I were a boy again, one of the first things I 
w^ould strive to do would be this : I would, as 
soon as possible, try hard to become acquainted 
with and then deal honestly with myself, to study 
up my own deficiencies and capabilities, and I 
would begin early enough, before faults had time 
to become habits ; I would seek out earnestly all 
the weak spots in my character and then go to 
work speedily and mend them with better mate- 
rial ; if I found that I was capable of some one 
thing in a special degree, I would ask counsel on 
that point of some judicious friend, and if advised 
to pursue it I would devote myself to that par- 
ticular matter, to the exclusion of much that is 
foolishly followed in boyhood. 

If I were a boy again I would practice ^J»er6ever- 



IF' I WERE A ROY AGAIN. 295 

ance oftener, and never give a thing up because 
it was hard or inconvenient to do it. If we want 
light, we must conquer darkness. When I think 
of mathematics I blush at the recollection of how 
often I "caved in" years ago. There is no trait 
more valuable than a determination to persevere 
when the right thing is to be accomplished. We 
are all inclined to give up too easily in trying 
or unpleasant situations, and the point I would 
establish with myself, if the choice were again 
within my grasp, would be never to relinquish 
my hold on a possible success if mortal strength 
or brains in my case were adequate to the occa- 
sion. That was a capital lesson which Professor 
Faraday taught one of his students in the lec- 
ture-room after some chemical experiments. The 
lights had been put out in the hall and by acci- 
dent some small article dropped on the floor from 
the professor's hand. The professor lingered be- 
hind, endeavoring to pick it up. " Never mind," 
said the student, "it is of no consequence to- 
night, sir, whether we find it or no." "That is 
true," replied the professor ; "' but it is of grave 



296 IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 

consequence to me as a principle, that I am not 
foiled in my determination to find it." Persever- 
ance can sometimes equal genius in its results. 
" There are only two creatures," says the Eastern 
proverb, "who can surmount the pyramids, — 
the eagle and the snail ! " 

If I were a boy again I would school mj'self 
into a habit of attention oftener, I would let noth- 
ing come between me and the subject in hand. 
I would remember that an expert on the ice 
never tries to skate in two directions at once. 
One of our great mistakes, while we are young, 
is that we do not attend strictly to what we are 
about just then, at that particular moment; we 
do not bend our energies close enough to what 
we are doing or learning ; we wander into a half- 
interest only, and so never acquire fully what is 
needful for us to become master of The prac- 
tice of being habitually attentive is one easily 
obtained, if we begin early enough. I often hear 
grown-up people say, "I couldn't fix my atten- 
tion on the sermon, or book, although I wished to 



IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 297 

do so," and the reason is that a habit of attention 
was never formed in youth. Let me tell you a 
sad instance of a neglected power of concentra- 
tion. A friend asked me once to lend him an 
interesting book, something that would enchain 
his attention, for he said he was losing the power 
to read. After a few days he brought back the 
volume, saying it was no doubt a work of great 
value and beauty, but that the will to enjoy it 
had gone from him forever, for other matters 
would intrude themselves on the page he was 
trying to understand and enjoy, and rows of fig- 
ures constantly marshalled themselves on the 
margin, adding themselves up at the bottom of 
the leaf! 

If I were to live my life over again I would 
pay more attention to the cultivation of memory. 
I would strengthen that ftxculty by every possi- 
ble means and on every possible occasion. It 
takes a little hard work at first to remember 
things accurately, but memory soon helps itself 
and gives very little trouble. It only needs 



2y8 IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 

early cultivation to become a i^ower. Every- 
body can acquire it. When I was a youth, a 
classmate of mine came to me with a long face 
and told me he was in danger of being sup- 
planted in the regard of a young person of the 
gentler sex by a smart fellow belonging to an- 
other school, who was daily in the habit of calling 
on the lady and repeating to her from memory 
whole poems of considerable length. " What 
would you dor' sighed the lad to me. "Dol" 
said I, "I would beat him on his own gTound, 
and at once commit to memory the whole of 
'Paradise Lost,' book by book, and every time 
the intruder left Amelia's house, I would rush 
in and fire away! Depend upon it," I said, "she 
is quite taken by surprise wath the skilful memory 
of her new acquaintance, and you must beat him 
with surpassing feats of the same quality." " 0, 
but," said my friend, " I have, as you know, a 
very 2:)oor memory!" "The more reason now 
for cultivating that department of your intellect," 
I rejoined. " If you give way to idle repining 
and do nothing, that fellow will soon be firmly 



IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 299 

seated in your place. I should not wonder if he 
were now at work on Thomson's 'Seasons/ for 
his inffimous purpose. Delay no longer, but 
attack John Milton after supper to-night, and 
win the prize above all competition ! " Ezekiel 
began in good .earnest, and before the summer 
was over he had memorized the whole of " Para- 
dise Lost," rehearsed it to Amelia, and gained the 
victory ! 

If I were a boy again I would know more 
about the history of my own country than is 
usual, I am sorry to say, with young Americans. 
When in England I have always been impressed 
with the minute and accurate knowledge con- 
stantly observable in young English lads of aver- 
age intelligence and culture concerning the his- 
tory of Great Britain. They not only have a 
clear and available store of historical dates at 
hand for use on any occasion, but they have a 
wonderfully good idea of the policy of govern- 
ment adopted by' all the prominent statesmen in 
different eras down to the present time. An ac- 



300 IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 

quaintaiice of mine in England, a hoy of fourteen, 
gave me one day such eloquent and intelligent 
reasons for his preference of Edmund Burke 
above all other patriotic statesmen of his time, 
as made me reflect how little the average Ameri- 
can lad of that age would be apt to know of the 
comparative merits of Webster and Calhoun as 
men of mark and holding the highest considera- 
tion thirty years ago in tlie United States. If 
the history of any country is worth an earnest 
study it is surely the history of our own land, 
and we cannot begin too early in our lives to 
master it fully and completely. What a confused 
notion of distinguished Americans a boy must have 
to reply, as one did not long ago when asked 
by his teacher, " Who was Washington Irving % '* 
"A General in the Revolutionary War, sir." 

If I were a boy again I would strive to become 
a fearless person, I would cultivate courage as one 
of the highest achievements of life. " Nothing is 
so mild and gentle as courage, nothing is so cruel 
and vindictive as cowardice," says the wise author 



IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 301 

of a late essay on conduct. Too many of us now- 
adays are overcome by fancied lions in the way, 
lions that never existed out of our own brains. 
Nothing is so credulous as fear. Some weak- 
minded horses are forever looking around for 
white stones to shy at, and if we are hunting for 
terrors they will be sure to turn up in some shape 
or other. In America we are too prone to borrow 
trouble and anticipate evils that may never appear. 
" The fear of ill exceeds the ill we fear." Abra- 
ham Lincoln once said he never crossed Fox River, 
no matter how high the stream was, until he came 
to it ! Dangers will arise in any career, but 
presence of mind will often conquer the worst of 
them. Be prepared for any fate, and there is no 
harm to be feared. Achilles, you remember, was 
said to be invulnerable, but he never went into 
battle without being completely armed ! 

If I were a boy again I would look on the cheer- 
ful side of everything, for everything almost has 
a cheerful side. Life is very much like a mirror ; 
if you smile upon it, it smiles back again on you, 



302 IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 

but if you frown and look doubtful upon it, you 
will be sure to get a similar look in return. I 
once heard it said of a grumbling, unthankful 
person, " He would have made an uncommonly 
fine sour apple, if he had happened to be born in 
that station of life ! " Inner sunshine warms not 
only the heart of the owner, but all who come in 
contact with it. Indifference begets indifference. 
" Who shuts love out, in turn shall be shut out 
from love." 

If I were a boy again I would school myself to 
say "iV'o" oftener. I might write pages on the 
importance of learning very early in life to gain 
that point where a young man can stand erect 
and decline doing an unworthy thing because it is 
unworthy, but the whole subject is so admirably 
treated by dear old President James AValker, who 
was once the head of Harvard Colleore, that I be*? 
you to get his volume of discourses and read wdiat 
he has to tell you about saying No on every proper 
occasion. Dr. Walker had that supreme art of 
" putting things " which is now so rare among 



J 

IF I WERE A BOY AGAIN. 303 

instructors of youth or age, and what he has left 
fur mankind to read is written in permanent ink. 

If I were a boy again I would demand of myself 
more courtesy towards my comijauions and friends. 
Indeed, I would rigorously exact it of myself 
towards strangers as well. The smallest courtesies, 
interspersed along the rough roads of life, are like 
the little English sparrows now singing to us all 
winter long, and making that season of ice and 
snow more endurable to everybody. 

But I have talked long enough, and this shall 
be my parting paragraph. Instead of trying so 
hard as some of us do to be happy, as if that were 
the sole purpose of life, I would, if 1 were a boy 
again, try still harder to deserve happiness. 




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